Francis Bacon tried to avoid narrative in his work, or at least the tedium of the conveyance of the narrative. He distrusted pedantic art, as do I. Bacon tried to force entry, instantaneously, into the viewers nervous system. Mainly (though not exclusively) through the medium of clay, I attempt to do the same. If there is no desire for the audience to take a second glance, the work is lost. However, once a viewer is engaged, the work can begin.

 

Clay is a superb medium to work in and I like to think I have an affinity with it in some of its many forms. It can span a range from the prosaic to super-refined. It is infinitely manipulable and forgiving if, like a child, you understand its limits and temperamentality.

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Death and darkness often feature in my work but as a focus on life. There is no white without black and there is no north without south. What I hope the works do, among other things, is provoke in my audience a contemplation of the fleetingness of mankind in infinity. There might sometimes be an element of memento mori but conversely, if you will, memento vivere.

My work often engages with the index – a trace of previous existence. In some of my sculpture and vases, organic material is imprinted as a link to things past. The ghost of what has been places us at a point in time relative to the pre-existent entity in the same way as it might were we observing a dinosaur footprint in a rock, a pre-historic
handprint or a gravestone.