To be inside a place is to belong to it and to identify with it, and the more profoundly inside you are the stronger is this identity with place.

(E.Relph).

 

Born in 1954 and having relocated from Sheffield in the mid 60’s, my life is now firmly rooted in South Wales. It is here that my wife and I have brought up our family and where I have spent my working life in the steel industry. In 2008 I fulfilled a lifelong ambition, ( some say a mid-life crisis) and embarked on a BA Honours degree at the University of Glamorgan where I gained first-class honours and was awarded the Branwen Thomas award.

 

My training amongst many other things helped me focus on the essence of my work. Connectedness has been a strong emotion within me and my work taps into where and how we fit in the world.

 

My work is a close examination of the landscape and its significance in shaping who we are. Embedded in this landscape amongst the detritus of industrial waste, I found a strong sense of human presence. My work is achieved by transferring information from clay pressings of natural textures on to moulded paper. The sculptural nature of the work attempts to do justice to the locality and its past. Revealing these textures, natural forms and colours, act as a testament to a time of intense human activity.

 

A close relationship with the landscape and its histories has developed into the main source of my work, evoking a growing sense of belonging. To respond to the landscape from within, not as an onlooker representing the land from outside. I believe that an emotional investment in place is an essential element in responding to that place and the landscape that place exists. I have set out to achieve this, through and in many instances, a physical engagement with my work. This stimulates strong thoughts of who and what we are and where we belong.

 

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