Sculpture is like a journey. You have a different view as you return. The three-dimensional world is full of surprises in a way that a two-dimensional world could never be.
Henry Moore
Let me be clear – there are fabulous, deeply moving paintings by everyone from Rembrandt and Velazquez to Kngwarreye and Booth and more. And wonderful photographers and potters. And I have tried my hand at each of these disciplines and the closest I got early on was three small sculptures I made in terracotta. It should have been a clue because even then it felt right working in 3D.
To me sculpture is a manifestation, a force, imbued with a vitality. I don’t think I can get that with a brush. For me sculpture has a physicality that canvas lacks.
Sculpture needs to have balance and aesthetics from any angle, even if it has a determined front to it. It is figurative, even when it is abstract. It is a being.
Sculpture allows me to work in the ‘twilight zone’ between an idea and pure feeling. It is a hard thing to describe. Somehow I know when something works, even or perhaps especially when it does not relate literally to the idea. And when I don’t have that sense then it is time to leave it alone for a while.
‘In art there is only one thing that counts; the thing you can’t explain.’
Georges Braque
When I painted I always felt a great weight of criticism and comparison. I remember looking at Brett Whiteley’s work and realising I could never approach his fluidity of line and sense of space, or how he used paint. That was partly because I hadn’t given myself enough time to find my voice. And partly because deep down I am not a painter.
I want to make things using materials that have integrity to the idea, and I cannot do that with paint, or clay or photography. I need to make things with substance, with body and physicality. Using my hands is how I transfer something of myself, something of what I am feeling, into the work.