Armagh County Museum and Bridge Street Studios Gallery Summer 2023

In this exhibition of work I’ve tried to make visible the evolution of my ideas from a few lines in charcoal through to a solidified form in bronze. 

The process:

“Trying to render an idea, an essence in a drawing – draw say, the rain, the mountain as a figure, the feeling of jumping off a cliff  

Often using figures as allegory, gesture as metaphor for a concept, or to evoke a feeling

Drawing is a powerful means of working these out – making associations and sorting through instincts, symbols and images.

Translate the drawings into 3 dimensions, extract the essence – using the qualities of line, the material, the image, scale, volume, weight …

Instinctively and quickly generating forms using quick and cheap materials making 3D sketches and collages.

Playing with forms, gestures, scale, texture…. weighing up contrasts, finding a meaningful angle or shape. This is a lovely stage, because everything is wide open and full of potential – inspiration is everywhere you look.

At some point decisions must be made – narrowing it down, choosing this and not that.

Through all these stages an idea is moving, mutating, dodging around, inhabiting one form then another until eventually it comes to rest – solidified and permanent, cast in bronze, carved in stone, fired in clay. 

The commitment must be made eventually and the ideas which have occupied my head are now outside it, a thing in the world. “