BRICK BASED WORK
I often use bricks as the canvas to my works, both directly on walls, or as individual stand alone pieces. I enjoy bringing conventional building materials which are not usually visible, right into the foreground in my artwork. When the work is in situ, I like to research the history of the building within which the wall is situated, so that I can incorporate something of thepast into that particular space.
All of these pieces contain sections of actual objects which have been embedded into the plaster. I have developed my own refinements of the plaster finishes; these are often polished and sometimes waxed.
The photograph at the top of the page shows details of a piece of work carried out within the walls of the attic of Salts Mill, Bradford. At the height of it's success Salts Mill (like most other mills in Yorkshire and Lancashire) employed many young children, often as young as 7 or 8. Their nimble fingers were able to slip between the strands of yarn on the loom to pick up loose threads, tie knots etc. I wanted to place some childhood objects within the space of the mill, as a recognition of the fact that these children probably lost the opportunity to play and have a toys.
All of these pieces contain sections of actual objects which have been embedded into the plaster. I have developed my own refinements of the plaster finishes; these are often polished and sometimes waxed.
The photograph at the top of the page shows details of a piece of work carried out within the walls of the attic of Salts Mill, Bradford. At the height of it's success Salts Mill (like most other mills in Yorkshire and Lancashire) employed many young children, often as young as 7 or 8. Their nimble fingers were able to slip between the strands of yarn on the loom to pick up loose threads, tie knots etc. I wanted to place some childhood objects within the space of the mill, as a recognition of the fact that these children probably lost the opportunity to play and have a toys.
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Here is a cross section of a toy truck, which was a commission within the walls of a car park space in York.
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This is a pair of Euclid's Dividers as used in geometry.
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Here are two shells sectioned and placed within a plaster bed.
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This beautiful snail like object is actually a section of a measuring tool used in physics, to record electrical activity.
A pair of crab claws sectioned and placed in a brick that has been worn down and smoothed over the decades.
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This brick contains sections of plastic beads
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This section of a shell is situated in a wall within Leeds Metropolitain University where I studied Fine Art.
This is a section of a whistle
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