Some Statements about the work

My work is a diverse practice that encompasses objects/sculpture, painting, books and moving image. It is a sort of interpretive diary about time and place that has resulted in a series of mementoes, relics and souvenirs. Often these are made by transforming or re-presenting found items and commonplace objects. The work emerges from simple observations that then dictate the medium that I employ. The dominant themes are creation and loss – the idea that everything is temporary, to a greater or lesser degree.

Back to Nature. 2002. Found rams skull. Approx 10 x 13 x 21 cm

It didn’t seem right that the skull I had found on Bodmin Moor when aged seven, and had treasured throughout my childhood, had been relegated to a box in the attic. Why not just return it to the land from where it came?
Whilst renewing my acquaintance with the treasure, two trees gradually emerged upon its surface as if to remind me that all is reclaimed by nature in the end.

Poynings Sheep 2003-4 Found sheep bones

This animal surrendered to its fate in a trench at the side of a field near Poynings, Sussex. The few bones that remained are now its memorial.

Insect box 2001 Found insects, scrap timber and mixed media.

This is a tomb to the unknown insect.

In honour of the tiny lives that pass unnoticed, I saved each dead beastie that I discovered throughout the year, at home and work. They were bagged and boxed. On lifting the lid of the casket each specimen emerges attached to a slat on a sort of venetian blind.

The collection is a small window upon the others that live in our houses.

Humpty’s World 2005 Ostrich egg, acrylic

An antique ostrich egg was accidentally broken. Upon discovering this as many fragments as possible were retrieved from the bin. The pieces were numbered, coloured and reassembled, like territories on a globe.

Foliated X 2004 161 x 163 cm Lino

The Foliated X is an extreme example of the type of illuminated letters that have been designed since the advent of the book. The letter X is the symbol of the unknown quantity or anonymous figure, and the decoration and presentation are suggestive of a Persian rug or similar.

The design was cut from lino that was retrieved from the basement of Brighton Museum when the building was refurbished in 2001.

Pen & Seal. 2003 Found water buffalo horns with silver and brass. 12.5 x 10 x 7 cm & 15 x18 x 7 cm

The quill is the most traditional of writing tools and represents all that has been written, good and bad. Lying dormant, it also contains the potential to communicate all that is to come.

This seal is the companion to the quill. It can be used to give official sanction or suggest ownership of an idea. It’s mark is the letter x and at rest its shape suggests a Fool’s cap.

Page. 2002. Reconstituted book dust. 22.5 x 15 cm

This is a document of lost ideas.

I used to work as an artefact cleaner for Brighton Museum and once assisted with the cleaning of the rare and antique book collection belonging to the city library. This task involved vacuuming and, where appropriate, treating the mould on the thousands of volumes, some of which date back to 1500. At the end of the job two Hoover bags had been filled with fine fragments and tiny particles of vellum and paper pages, as well as the dust from the slowly degrading leather and cloth bindings.
Later this bookdust was reconstituted into a new page.

A Closed Book. 1995/2002. 90x76 cm.

Cloth, plywood, door furniture, cord, tassels, paper, sealing wax,9 screenprinted pages and 5 steel etchings.

A Fool’s Lexicon revised edition. 2001. 90 x 76 cm. Cloth, mdf, sand, door furniture, cord, tassels, paper 9 screenprinted pages + acrylic paint, 7 stencil drawings

A Fool’s Lexicon is a playful thesis about religious ecstasy and the nature of the Holy Fool that takes its cue from “The Praise of Folly’ (1511) by Erasmus. Because it is intended as an embodiment of Folly the book is unwieldy, pompous and impractical. In short, it is ridiculous.

Erasmus complained about “those rhetoriticians who, in order to confuse and impress, dig up obscure words from mouldy manuscripts”. This complaint has been studiously ignored and consequently most readers of the Lexicon will require a dictionary for fuller understanding. However, each word can be taken to describe an aspect of the book that contains it, as well as the subject as a whole.

The work is also a journey from birth to death. Light to dark, from innocence through experience. The first version, made in 1995, consists of 9 screenprinted pages and five steel etchings. In the second, revised edition, completed in 2001, these images were replaced with seven stencil drawings. The text has also been painted out, leaving a trace as an indication of how my memory of the initial inspiration had faded.

With the completion of the revised version, I was able to put the first edition to bed. After I had read the original for one last time it was permanently sealed with wax (this was documented on video). Consequently, the Closed Book now leaves any potential reader completely frustrated - and paradoxically makes the work truer to the heart of the theme than the revised edition.

Döppelganger Urns. 2006 Glazed slipware

Whilst walking along the road I was suddenly confronted by a figure turning from a side street. We stared at each other in surprised silence as each realised we were the other’s double.

In many cultures, to encounter one’s döppelganger is recognised as a sign of imminent death. These urns record the fateful meeting. Slip cast in a two part mould, they take my profile for their form. They may be useful in the near future.

Tower of Babel 2005 Letraset and streetmap

Genesis11:1-9. The people baked bricks and took mortar and said ‘Let us build a city and a tower with its top in the heavens.” To humble their pride God confused the peoples’ language so that they no longer understood one another, and scattered them over the face of the earth so that the building was not finished.

The transfer lettering called Letraset was once an essential tool found in every graphic designers studio. However, the advent of computer technology has made it redundant. Recently I became the recipient of over 100 sheets of Letraset when a small studio had a clear out. These letters were used to build the tower on a streetmap of Manhattan.

Know Thyself 2005 Video transferred to DVD 13:30 minutes

This film focuses upon a gilded skull crowned with laurel leaves. From winter, through spring and summer, sparrows can be seen coming and going, chattering, bickering and playfully flying to and fro.

The birds are our soul, our thoughts, dreams and flights of fancy. They are like messengers between man and the cosmos.

Know Thyself was the motto of the Delphic Oracle and later affirmed by Socrates. His systematic questioning led him to encourage a fresh awareness of the central significance of the soul. He considered it to be the seat of individual consciousness and the source of moral and intellectual character. Socrates believed that any attempt to foster true success and excellence in human life has to take into account, and understand, the innermost reality of ones being - the soul or psyche. Only then can one find true happiness. Happiness is not the result of physical or external circumstances such as wealth, power or reputation, but of living a life that is good for the soul.

Several Billion Years 2004 Video transferred to DVD 26:02 mins Sound by Tim Brickell

“Stars are formed when the mutual gravitational attraction between molecules floating in space, mostly hydrogen gas, causes lumps to form. As these aggregates coalesce, gravity presses the molecules closer and closer together until they interact under high pressure causing an increase in temperature.This process continues until the gas begins to glow and produce electro-magnetic radiation of all different wavelengths. As the compression increases, the interaction intensifies until the radiation pressure is great enough to stop further gravitational attraction.

When a star burns up all its fuel, it collapses due to its own gravity.”
Stephen Hawking for Beginners from J.P. McEvoy and Oscar Zarat

If a whole world can be created out of one man’s ego, then perhaps one man’s life can be seen as indicative of the whole world. Indeed, could the whole be described in something as mundane as one man’s hangover?

Several Billion Years is a video work by Russell Webb that represents the birth and death of a star, showing the coalescing of tiny bubbles, which froth and fizz with increasing violence before spluttering to a halt when they solidify into one mass. The film is actually a recording of a dissolving vitamin tablet shown in reverse so that it seems to attract rather than effervesce bubbles of gas. It is a neat conflation of the 60’s cry of “the personal is political” and an older form of pantheism dating back to at least Spinoza. When you are looking for what is important in life, you could do worse than start with a handy cure for a night of drunken excess.
Pryle Behrman writer and curator

New Morning 2006 DVD 13:26

A simple vision that presents night into day, darkness into light.

The Living End looped DVD 10:02 minutes. Filmed September 2006 Edited August 2007

When present at my daughters birth all sorts of thoughts invaded my mind about life, its passing and those who I would have liked her to meet.

The image derives from vanitas and memento mori works - specifically the tradition of the Sleeping Putto with Death’s Head.

Brain and Body Energy 2007 DVD 6:02 minutes

A stationary bottle begins to shudder and slowly increases in momentum. As it begins to gyrate and is about to topple over a hand appears and stops it.

The saga continues at different intervals. Each time our expectations are confounded - both by the unseen force that acts upon the vessel and the unknown steadying influence.

This work is presented as a wall projection with the bottle on a human scale so that the hand is enormous, as that of a god.

Portrait project begun 2007. All portraits Oil on MDF 14 x 11.5 cm

The absence of clues such as uniform or environment reveal that a person’s face alone tells little of their work, interests or education. These portraits counter the idea of social types proposed by the studies made by photographers such as August Sander and Diane Arbus.

Human Resources at Brighton Museum presented 50 portraits of frontline staff who work as security, technicians, cashiers and guides. They have a combined work experience exceeding 1500 years, and among them are musicians, writers, artists, historians, engineers, scientists, collectors, carers and other talents.

The project is ongoing.

The Pursuit of Wagner’s Folly. 1997 Five panel, folding screen. Oil on canvas.
Each double sided, framed panel 179cm x 69cm.

St. Bartholomew’s Church in Brighton is the tallest parish church in the country. Standing at 135 feet high, it is known locally as Noah’s Ark and was mockingly described at its inception as “Wagner’s Folly” due to the extravagant vision of its patron, Fr. A.D. Wagner.

For six months during 1997-98 I was artist-in-residence. To begin I needed to develop my understanding of the architecture. Because I had a fear of producing a pile of tedious drawings my solution was to make a folding screen. This enabled me to establish and describe relationships, real and perceptual, of the exterior and interior of the building. The utilitarian nature of this product is appropriate to the way the arts and crafts have been employed at St. Bartholomew’s since building was completed in 1874

Family Tree 2009 Found antler, acrylic. Approx 70 x 40 x 30 cm

The engraved trunk and branches of an antler describe mankind’s ancestral history and his relationship to the apes.

Window 2009 Wood and card (work in progress)

An über frame without a picture that uses approximately 50 discarded window mounts from the Towner Gallery collection of works on paper.

The absence of an image is emblematic of the Artists’ search for truth and beauty. Of course, these are notions of the Eternal which, according to the mystics, are in the realm of the Unseen.