Anthropomorphs

Work from 2019 -21

(This project was started before Covid and finished it in the little gaps between lockdowns.)

“Initially, I started working on interpreting images from the past that seemed to encapsulate a religion or a myth or a story. I worked with images of things like the god Baal, the Diana of Ephesus, the winged victory of Samothrace and the story of wars and so on. For example in my image of the Winged Victory I isolated the momentum the image has together with the notion of flight. The resultant image was a life sized bronze anvil being borne aloft by swans wings that I cast in aluminium.

I was rather hoping all these images would establish a dialogue between each other but sadly they did not – they all seemed rather self contained.

I then decided that if I already had gods then maybe I needed people as ‘worshippers’ and so I made another seven smaller bronzes.

The sculptures had a peculiar sort of power but friends who saw them, although liking the juxtaposition of slightly surreal objects, did not quite see what I saw. Indeed the interpretations were wildly different and I realised that how they interpreted it was very much dependent on their own ‘take’ on the world. So I have decided that the sculpture’s very ambiguity is perhaps it’s strength!

So make of it what you will…… you will be right. It is a rather like a Rorschach test. I hope it tells the viewer more about themselves on reflection.”