The unusual texture of printed plastic, slightly warped due to AI filling in gaps, allow onlookers to discern between works cast in pewter and jesmonite. These ‘copies’ of works usually guarded behind glass evoke cultural memory yet leave viewers with a sense of remembrance just out of reach
Read More…my process is a hit and run technique, I can be anywhere and I might see something that grabs my attention, a shape a form that is different so like a photographer I want to capture that moment but instead of it being two dimensional it’s in the three dimensional realm.
Read More2023 was, for me, a tale of two birthdays. It was the year that I turned fifty-one and resigned from my job of nineteen years with the Henry Moore Institute. It also represented thirty-four years, to the day, since I took on my first proper job, beyond a paper round, with Sainsbury’s.
Read MoreWhilst I always understood that Jacob’s Ladder would be a labour of love for both myself, as BasementArtsProject: the commissioning organisation, and for sculptor Keith Ackerman, I knew that it would definitely take longer than the one-hundred days of the Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019. But we never imagined the three year odyssey that it would become thanks to the C***d pandemic lockdowns.
Read MoreFor the last few months I have been in discussion with artist Paul Digby about his latest sculpture project ‘Looking To The Future: Emily’, and talking about BasementArtsProject’s position as co-creator on it.
Read MoreBeneath the surface of the locked down world the oxygen is running low. The tiny life support capsules sustaining our presence in the airless vacuum of millions of hard-drives, can only sustain three dimensional life for so long. It is time to head for the surface, but not too rapidly.
Read MoreSo how do we get past the problem of perception, access and desire. Life is about dialogue, that is how we learn. We educate ourselves through experience, we find the edge of our zone of comfort and understanding and we push past it, through to what lies beyond.
Read MoreSo, 2023 is still a thing; by which I mean Leeds2023. Despite the fact that Brexit put paid to any opportunity for UK cities to present their wares on a European stage, Leeds has committed itself to ensuring that 2023 remains an important year for the city in terms of culture; despite the funding and exposure being cut off by political dispute.
Read MoreWhen we lose a sense of purpose we lose our sense of the future, and that is where hopelessness slips into the void and feeds our deepest fears. That is the point at which the sun sets never to rise again.
Read MoreThe question is how to achieve those elusive steps to improvement, how to train your vision on a new horizon and attempt to take people with you on that journey.
Read Morethere is something really fascinating about revisiting, reworking and stripping back. Sanding down the floor of the studio, peeling back layers of varnish and paint that had become caked on the floor was both an incredibly satisfying feeling - like cleaning a dirty kitchen and then seeing it sparkle
Read MoreThere is something rather disheartening about opening up my computer each day to a raft of reminders and notifications telling me that I should be installing, opening, taking down yet another exhibition that has not happened.
Read Morehe source material, a photo of a wrapped garden ornamental pedestal, was sent to me by my American pal and painter Peter Waite.
Read MoreThis series of drawings were made during coronavirus lockdown and are based on Henry Moore’s Three Standing Figures, which are based in my immediate locality and stand overlooking the quietness of the lake in Battersea Park.
Read MoreThis lockdown casting has another link with my Mum, in that I discussed the design for this triptych while sitting with her overlooking the sea at Runswick Bay in September 2013.
Read More“…the situation we find ourselves in, here in the 21st Century, is a direct result of our colonial history and there is a bill that will always be due!”
Read MoreCuratorSpace Courses is a course and workshop listing platform which we've built to let artists and arts professionals move their IRL courses online and list them for free during the pandemic. We’re hoping it will make it easier for people to make a living in these difficult times, as well as giving others a chance to learn something new while they are in lockdown or self isolating.
Read MoreAlabaster for my brother’s 60th, made during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown.
Read MoreAs we move further into 2020 it is time for an update on what is happening here at BasementArtsProject with regards to our programme.
Read More‘Sculpture from the Sofa’ is a series of short videos that aim to share knowledge and enthusiasm for sculpture, based on domestic objects collected over the last decade or so. This episode features a plaster cast of ‘L’Inconnue de la Seine’ (‘The Unknown Woman of the Seine’), its apocryphal origin story and the ways in which it has entered popular culture.
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