Artist's statement:

My works are deliberately confrontational; the pieces confront both the viewer and the exhibiting institution with their real or implied activity and consequences. The works are performative; they inhabit a particular moment of possible action and subsequent reaction. Their physicality aims to instigate an intense and visceral relationship with the viewer and the gallery architecture. Threatened ripples of consequence are sent throughout the sculptures and audience alike. Manipulating everyday materials within a space, the works keep the viewer poised in a state of slight suspense, challenging them to respond to a unique and evolving environment of cause and effect.

The works spin, roll, wobble, fall, flick, collapse, shatter and even ignite… but when? The control systems are automatic and random, the works are not equipped with the ability to react to each other or to the presence of viewers. The possibility of their actual activity being observed depends purely on chance and patience; some work’s parameters are deliberately set to challenge and tease a viewer’s attention span.

Some works are calm, stable and self-contained whilst others confront the viewer with overtly catastrophic outcomes. Most function repeatedly, others are self-destructive and can only activate once, the resulting debris and detritus becoming the exhibited work. The nature of the sculptures means that an exhibition may continue to evolve and any two visits are unlikely to be the same.

Since 2009 I have been making the overtly confrontational Health and Safety Violations, some are deliberately dangerous, others only sound so for example, Health & Safety Violation #15 – Spiral twist hazard (Motor and bungee cord – 2009/11) shifts, twists and turns backwards and forwards reinventing it’s shape and posture with every activation. The title frames it as dangerous, but is it? I have recently begun work on a new series of works entitled the Causality series: One Shot Pretty Sculpture (Matches and random timer – 2011) is specifically performative in nature, it activates, burns the text from one end to the other, which lasts for several minutes. The remnants are then exhibited. Please note that the Causality works are not yet online but they will be soon.

25/11/2011.