Capricornos 2017

Capricorno I: Marble, 150cm x 30cm x 100cm

Capricorno II: Marble, 115cm x 84cm x 111cm high

These are my Capricorno's that I finished in the spring of 2017. They are based on these majestic animals, but by singling out the head and the horns and extrapulating their features, I am turning them into things in themselves. I am not trying to represent the animal, as such, but give you an encounter with these things as a dynamic of form and of course the relationship to the elements - a head, a skull and the set of horns, weapons and protection, as a conceptual and phenomenological encounter.

This is a new series based on Capricorn heads - small goats with large horns. People often think of my animal heads as being abstractions, which is not quite right, because I don't look at animals to start with the idea. I go out and find rocks or natural shapes and then I re-make the animal from this construct. It is the opposite of abstracting form.

I a looking for a specific dynamic when I am looking for these rocks and pieces of wood etc; it is about using these specific dynamics that exist and reshaping them to fit my ideas. With these new sculptures it is almost like walking through the desert and seeing the skulls that become strangely alive. I don't think these pieces appear to be dead or are missing a body. They are a different way of talking about qualities and very human dynamics in an inhuman form. The engagement with sculpture as a thing is an enrichment to the understanding of how we find meaning in the living world.

see also: on form 18, Asthall Manor, Oxfordshire, UK

and: Renaturing Nature, Hignell Gallery, London, UK