In Between Days - Solo Exhibition 12 September to 10 October 2015 @ArtsmithLIVE, 109c Monk Street, Derby, DE22 3QE.

A chance meeting in a garden centre with a strange and attractive specimen is the start of the journey which has concluded here, with this body of work.

That chance specimen was a plant named Crassula ovata ‘Gollum’ – Hobbit’s Pipe.  The form of its leaves was immediately astounding and gave me strong impressions of the body, the flesh.  Surrounded by a plethora of delicately leafed plants, the Gollum seemed alien.  I had to buy it.

Using the idea of growth through struggle, I began sculpting forms inspired by the plant and experimenting with concrete which delivers a sense of brutality.  I find the tension between these two materials exciting.  The brutal, and the delicate.  Both are stable and durable but require care to preserve.

What you see here are the results so far.  The vitality of life which is also delicate, thrusting through the harshness of an increasingly uncaring world.  There is a sense of an impending apocalypse here too.  And also some hope.