Fragment

Stainless steel maquette
2013 (Finished height approx 10m)

Fragment is an enigmatic piece of something large, something unknown and undiscoverable. It is part of my continuing investigation of ideas on perception, of things that engage the forces of nature, of things that change and grow. The core of this continuing investigation is a series of solo shows, the first of which, Metamorphosis, was held in 2012 at the Brenda May Gallery in Sydney and the second, Carapace will be at Brenda May's in 2014.

Fragment pursues that moment between balance and flight where the precise distribution of mass, form and space activate the sculpture – a creative engineering that aims to imbue a potency of lightness, of energy and of action. Inspired by observation of the natural marine world, it is intended to embody complexity, movement, an unfolding – a motion frozen in a moment of time.

Fragment can be viewed as the skeletal relic of some ancient creature come to life. Long-dead, its broken spine tossed and broken by the force of the waves, one of the pieces has now washed-up on our beach.

It is a metaphor for what is lost and found - the subject has been broken into many fragments and these pieces scattered to the four winds. One fragment has been found, the others are still missing or perhaps they have been found but we don't know where and when. To us, this is the one remaining example of that which was lost.

Chimaera

Timber and cardboard maquette
(length approx 150cm)

ad astra

Timber and cardboard maquette

Commissioned 2012 by Mirvac Developments for 'Era' in Chatswood NSW
(48cm high x 17cm x 42cm for public sculpture approx 9m high)

The Kraken Wakes

Steel maquette superimposed on landscape

for public sculpture approx 4m high

Below the thunders of the upper deep;

Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,

His antient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

About his shadowy sides: above him swell

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

And far away into the sickly light,

From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

Unnumber'd and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

There hath he lain for ages and will lie

Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

Then once by man and angels to be seen,

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

Lord Alfred Tennyson

The Kraken Wakes is part of my continuing investigation of ideas on perception, of things that engage the forces of nature, of things that change and grow. The creatures inhabiting the seas are the inspiration for this dynamic abstract exploration of nature and the laws of physics and biology: of resistance to the crushing weight of the deep ocean, of the lightness of a soaring rise through the open sea, of arrival at the inhospitable surface.

Inspired by observation of the natural world, this work embodies complexity, movement and a sense of motion frozen in a moment of time. Kraken pursues that moment between balance and flight where the precise distribution of mass, form and space activate the sculpture: a creative engineering that aims to imbue a potency of lightness, of energy and action.

The title of this work is taken from John Wyndham's book about the invasion of dry land by creatures from the abyssal deep – but the work itself is pure Tennyson: an ancient abyssal ('abysmal') creature, sleeping for millennia amongst sponges and enormous polyps, its giant arms feeding on huge sandworms, now risen to the surface to be seen by Man and the angels, to die.