Jean Arp loved natures forms because he felt that nature buckled modern society’s overdependence on reason. These delicate landscapes consider the struggle between our desire to impose form on the natural world and its unwillingness to conform. The physical world corrupts, erupts, distorts and discolours  our efforts to suppress, edit or frame it.

There is also human error. Although I strive to apply my own structure to these works through concentration and technical skill, I fail. I make mistakes, my concentration wanders, I change my mind, I can’t maintain a straight line or a perfect sphere. I find I am being pulled toward an intuitive way of working, like stacking firewood. So, I allow the timber I have before me to lead the way, and through a process of editing, I try and reveal the qualities and narrative held within it.

The title for each work is provided by the location that the timber is found. I seek out fallen and forgotten wood, and how it has responded to its surroundings and environment provides me with the platform to work from.

The completed piece is evidence of fallibility, methodology and is an expression of nature’s fragile and yet robust qualities. It becomes a study in texture, colour and process led by the nature of the material. But always in my mind is the desire to describe the landscape of the human body and the country.