I grew up among the ironworks and steel mills of the Black Country, and began sculpting in metal in my early teens. Later leaving the industrial wasteland for the bright skies of southern Spain, where I lived for over 20 years, I developed a love of olive wood, and have been joining wood and metal ever since. The trinity of my materials is completed by clay, in the shape of Raku, which with its metallic glazes and my home-built kilns of all shapes and sizes brings me full circle to the foundries of my youth.
Raku ceramics, metal and wood – together they allow me to explore the relationship between the man-made and nature, chance and intention.
I combine painstakingly heat-coloured copper or steel and the natural graining of old English elm, oak and yew with the chance outcomes of the raku glaze. Working in raku permits me to build my own kilns and thus take ceramic sculpting to experimental places and dimensional limits. The unpredictable nature of raku informs the eventual hard-won order of a finished piece.
My current cycles of work are the Working Men Cycle and the Classical Cycle; they are ever growing and recently I have added large-scale water and fire sculptures, part of the Classical Cycle, as well as small scale and life size Working Men.
In 2024 my work can be seen here:
5 – 6 May Belper Arts Trail
29 – 30 June Bonsall Arts Trail
19 – 21 July Great Dome Art and Design Fair, Buxton
3 – 4 August Staunton Harold Summer Artisan Show
6 – 8 September Art In The Gardens, Sheffield
7 – 10 November Staunton Harold Christmas Artisan Show
My work is also on view at the Courtney Gallery in Ashbourne, Derbyshire and the Taurean Arts Gallery in Ashbourne, Derbyshire
Selected Recent Exhibitions
2023 Street Life, Group Exhibition, Creative Melbourne Gallery, Derbyshire
2023 Art In The Gardens, Sheffield
2023 Ashbourne Festival Summer Exhibition, Derbyshire, UK
2022 Ashbourne Festival Summer Exhibition, Derbyshire, UK
2021 Revival, Group Exhibition, Courtney Gallery, Ashbourne, Derbyshire
2014 The Museum Belongs To All, Kunsthaus Berlin, Marbella, Spain
2014 Passion in Art Exhibition, National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies (NADFAS), Benahavis, Spain
2013 Kinsale Arts Festival, Susan Harris Gallery, Kinsale, Ireland
2013 Finalist, VI Ramon Portillo Art Contest, Motril, Spain
2013 Solo Exhibition, Gallery Nestor Plada, Estepona, Spain
Works held in private collections in Spain, Ireland, Germany, France, the US and the UK.