ARTIST STATEMENT
Much of my work uses cardboard as a sculptural material due to it immediacy, ease of availability, reasonable cost and low environmental impact. My intention is to produce sculptures that echo the detail and depth found within traditional sculpting materials at a time of great global economic and environmental upheaval. My work is a search for a common truth and to find a sense of quiet humanity in the small details that are sometimes drowned out by the noise and brightness of contemporary culture.
I like to transform the utilitarian and overlooked cardboard box into a sophisticated and elaborate sculpting material. With this, I create life size, three-dimensional portraits of people and animals, and anatomical models and furniture, including a monumental-scale commission for the Lucca Biennale in 2018.
The process and outcomes of making my work have always been intertwined with the practicalities of sculpting with a physical impairment. I lost my right leg to cancer when I was a teenager, so I spent time searching for an accessible and readily available material that I could use from my bedroom whilst rehabilitating. I create my work in pieces and then strategically position them together like a grand jigsaw puzzle to make the final design. This echoes the problem-solving skills that dyslexics, of which I am one, develop to write things down in a coherent manner.
Ingrained in my process is the desire to teach and demonstrate the techniques I use with others. Often working with schools, community groups and museums, I want to make sculpture accessible and blur the boundary between high art and low art for all audiences. I believe in art for all; art beyond race, gender, age, wealth, ability and disability.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2024 PULP: MAKE Southwest, Devon.
2023 The Effects of Nature, Exeter Cathedral.
2023 Wells Art Contemporary, Wells Cathedral.
2019 Body Parts, China House, London
2018 Shape Arts: Retrospective, Hoxton Arches, London
2018 Lucca Biennale, Lucca, Tuscany
2017 Outside In Journeys, Sotheby’s, London
2012 Gold Run: Remix, Dilston Grove, London
COMMISSIONS
2024 Frontline Dance – FAF2024 Artist R and D project and festival presentation. Collaboration with movement artists Welly O’Brien and Victoria Fox.
2023 Adam Reynolds Digital Animation ‘Another Day’
2022 Libraries unlimited – Barnstaple Library Reading Tree.
2018 Ikea, Exeter. Store opening, commissioned to make cardboard furniture.
2017 Rajapack, commissioned to make a short video ‘Art of Recycling’
2017 Brewhouse Theatre & Arts Centre, Taunton, installation to mark the anniversary of the Brewhouse Theatre
2014 Olympic Park, London, National Paralympic Day, commissioned to make cardboard hands showing BSL
AWARDS
2023 Adam Reynolds Memorial Fund – collaboration with Shape Arts London and Hot Knife Digital to create an animated film.
2020 -23 Henry Moore Foundation: Artistic Practice Bursary
2020 Arts Council England: Professional development funding
2018 Lucca Biennale: Lifetime Achievement Award
2009 TACO 3D (Torre Abbey Contemporary Open): People’s Choice Award
PUBLICATIONS AND NEWS COVERAGE
2024 This is Colossal – Featured the Pulp exhibition – Make Southwest
2022 The Morning Show – Seven Network Australia
2021 Wired Online – video documentary of working process and sculptures.
2020 Henry Moore Foundation – Read more about the Artistic Practice Bursary.
2018 BBC Spotlight – TV interview ‘The paper man turning cardboard into art’.
2017 This Is Colossal – Online Arts and Culture Magazine.