Research
I had been passionate about metalwork since I was 20, but five years later, during my undergraduate studies at the School of Jewellery in Birmingham, UK, I came across a series of diagrams that set me on a particular path
Broadly known as ‘Harmonograms’, they inspired me to create freely twisting ribbons as sculptural forms, which required some special techniques for stretching the metal into compound, negative curvatures.
There is a curious correlation between the tension in the form and the tension in the process.
Understanding curvature
Finnish-American silversmith Heikki Seppä and American goldsmith Michael Good had done some amazing work in the field of ‘anticlastic raising’.
Local stretching and compression are reversed from the more common processes of making a domed vessel. This allows for an entirely different vocabulary of forms, from very controlled geometric forms to freely twisting meanders and undulations similar to what we find in seaweed.
Helicoids
By simply changing the orientation of curvature from being aligned with the central axis of a strip of metal to diagonal, it assumes a helicoidal geometry: a beautiful, fundamental principle.
Minimal surfaces
The outcomes of the process can overlap with geometries investigated by mathematicians for their special area-minimising and topological qualities, which had led to some curious abstract forms.
Sharing knowledge
Conference papers
2021 Generative Art Conference, Milan
2008 Bridges Leeuwarden
2008 3d Modelling Symposium, Berlin
2007 Bridges Donostia
2006 Bridges London
2001 ISAMA, Freiburg
Exhibitions
While I do not want to see my art as educational, I do see it as an exploration which others should be able to enjoy as much through the concepts as through the artworks.
Works Catalogue
Still under construction....
