about
I am interested in what a specific object is for, why and where - whether it intuitively works. Terms such as 'abstract' or 'traditional' don't help me get there.
I don't separate lettering, architectural ornament or the figurative in my thinking or interest.
I have never subcontracted any carving, modelling or any other kind of work without specifically attributing collaboration to third parties.
What I can show
- Capacity for thorough research
- Strong knowledge base on fabrication; art history; architecture; gardens; and historical and political contexts
- High-level manual skill and expertise in the making of objects and environments
- Performing to commission criteria
- Collaborative bent
- Administrative capabilities in organising and executing complex lengthy projects
Formal Training
- History, and then Social & Political Sciences, specialising in political philosophy and the history of political thought. King's College Cambridge. The core benefit to figurative work is a broad appreciation of the underpinning Humanism and Anti-Humanism residing in the European tradition that directly affect representations of the human body.
- Architectural and figurative stonecarving, including lettering, clay modelling, plaster modelling, casting and mould-making, life drawing, anatomy and stone/plaster conservation. City & Guilds of London Art School
Further Training
- Many years of apprenticeships to a series of artists using different media ranging from the highly abstracted to more formally representational
Material media and skill sets
- Stone carving: limestones, sandstones, marbles, granites, slates, alabaster, 'found' conglomerates; both direct carving and carving from maquettes/models. Lettering, abstract sculpture, figurative sculpture, architectural ornament, stone masonry
- Modelling materials: clay, plastiline, plaster and wax; direct carving of stone and plaster
- Bronze: direct carving and finishing
- Wood: letter carving and tinting/ageing/inlay
- Casting: plaster, alginate, polyester resin, jesmonite, mould-making with silicon rubber
- Gilding
- Conservation skills in stone, lime and plaster both theoretical and practical
- Ongoing life drawing
- MMA and TIG welding of steel and bronze
Stonecarving
- Twenty years of carving/modelling/fabrication of over thirty private client commissions, projects varying from one day to two years' full-time work. Extensive experience in moving and cutting five-ton alabaster boulders by hand.
- Commissioned work has been interspersed with stone conservation, complex casting, plaster sculpture repair and conservation, gilding, lime-work and its chemistry (cement removal and lime re-pointing), stone and brick re-colouring, including three high-end sites: Edwin Lutyens' Mansfield Street house; artificially ageing a whole vaulted ceiling for Russian oligarchs (Cheevers Howard Ltd), ten Regent's Park Nash stone staircases (London Stone Conservation Ltd) and Westminster Hall (DBR).
- Experienced with both complex and small-scale building sites and H&S; following detailed briefs and specs, including council regulations/requirements.
Public Work, Monuments and Sculpture
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Involved in over twenty-five public monuments construction and/or carving, including the 2003 World Trade Centre memorial.
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Jointly created with Jake Tilson a complete font from a dead person's handwriting for Giuseppe Mascoli of Franco Manca.
Figurative Work
Two decades of sustained life drawing
Multiple life casts of heads and hands:
1999 Skull and muscle reconstruction at City&Guilds.
2000 First head direct-carved into stone: caryatid using an architectural fragment from the bombed Baltic exchange to represent Kleio goddess of history.
2004 St Gengoux Patron Saint of Cuckolds. Private commission.
2012 Alabaster carving based on a quote from Friedrich Schiller.
2017 Carving of alabaster cow head incorporated into a chandelier, including the casting of a milk bottle in resin. Collaborative project with Richard Hackney and Tom Kendall.
2019 Low relief portraits for the Royal Mint
2020 Joe Orton sculpture competition
2020 Portrait skulls of two children
2020 Collaboration with Martin Jennings on new Wollstonecraft statue