So, I'm back in the studio developing sculptures that explore the figure.
I'm developing the process I used on the Orang Utan I made for the City of Culture earlier this year, but this time looking more closely at human stories recreating figures from global legends.
Natural forms offer fractals and twisting forms that suggest movement and create dynamism. I've found fallen hazel locally and this works particularly well for sculpture as I cut and reassemble the parts to create accurately placed joints and proportion. I couldn't find the right shape for the head of each figure, so I took a leaf out of Yinke Shonibare's book and have found head shapes from other objects such as light bulbs and objects/tools associated with plumbing - perhaps a metaphor in energy and water rationed times.
It has to be said, Shonibare [https://yinkashonibare.com/] is something of a legend. An artist of skill and vision doesn't need patronising and he has been creating engaging, relevant work long before he was short-listed for the Turner Prize back in 2004. However, his genius is made even more powerful by the fact that he is a wheelchair user with significant movement issues since being hit by transverse myelitis, damaging his spinal cord when he was in his teens.
