
The potency of the installation intrigues me and for years I have tended to make a complete body of work for a specific gallery space. By starting with a theme, followed by a title, and turning the theme over and over in my head while doing the work a full-blown installation gradually evolves, contributed to all the while by relevant and exciting ideas that spring synchronistically from such things as the books I read and the conversations I have. Almost all of the 20 plus solo shows I have had have been installations. The whole of the space bears upon the atmosphere of the installation and the presence of music or sound in the exhibition transforms the experience. I have collaborated with composers, poets and playwrights since 1997 and recitals and performances often take place in my exhibitions. Up until recently my work was painting, usually chance-based, often large-scale with series and polyptychs. But since 2009 I have been making installations using sculpture and wall reliefs in a variety of materials including found objects ranging from old yellowed sheet music cut and glued to form suspended curving shapes to smashed DVDs rotating so that their intense colours glint. |
Much of my work and in particular my shows Out of The Deep, The painted veil, Placentia and Passion has addressed the fragility of the human condition and how that very fragility enables a sense of humanity. These ideas continued with La vita nuova, my first collaboration with Stephen Dydo, but our next three exhibitions riverrun, Ten thousand currents and Watermusic addressed instead aspects of our fragile planet by considering the power of water both as giver and destroyer. Our forthcoming installation, Reflection, in Peterborough Cathedral in 2012 embraces diverse approaches to reflection in the context of a place of worship and it is hoped that major elements of the show will tour later in the year to Western Connecticut State University to coincide with talks on the arts by the Dalai Lama. I have collaborated with New York composer Stephen Dydo since 2006. Due to living either side of the Atlantic we depend much of the time on Skype, webcams and exchanging JPEGS and MP3s. Nevertheless we work closely in developing various means of expression which use our respective disciplines in a fused joint effort so that together we create environments which could not be realised without the collaborative relationship. |
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