A sculptor’s materials are the vehicle for language and a means of communication.  Be it glass, bricks, steel or clay – what is it you wish to communicate? The reason I continue to work in plastic materials such as clay, wax and setting plaster is because of its organic qualities. The emotion that I want to communicate comes through the language of the human body.

There may be slight cultural differences in the common understanding of body language, but essentially every human being on the planet that has ever lived and will ever live will understand a frown or a smile. But it is not just our facial expressions that speak volumes. Every physical stance and gesture speaks to us.  We are hard-wired to interpret the movements and expressions of our fellow humans in terms of emotional communication. 

In producing a portrait sculpture, I am not just interested in rendering a likeness of that person but also in conveying emotion through that vehicle. Minute nuances, such as the angle of the eyes, the lips and the neck, are infinite and I must feel the emotion myself whilst sculpting to have some confidence that the viewer of the final piece will experience a symbiosis of emotion. I have not found any other medium, better than clay, that allows me to experiment with human emotional responses.  This is also true, although to a lesser extent, when I am sculpting animals.
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I am lucky to have been classically trained, having studied Sculpture and Art History at Camberwell School of Arts, London in the 1980s. Now, I am at my happiest working in my studio in Raglan, SE Wales, especially creating new sculptures, with our cats Sammy and Coco wandering through and doing their best to distract me.