You Said, 2018
This piece is inspired by what motivates people to make their mark. In this case, the notion of arborglyph inscriptions where messages, poems & visuals are carved into tree bark.
I'm drawn by the sense of irony that through attempting to leave a permanent mark in the bark of the tree, the message is in fact being stretched, eroded & distorted over time. Cracks, fractures and splinters start to eat away at the inscriptions rendering them illegible after only a few years...
I like how this seems to reflect the nature of human relationships and the notion of romantic love. It is as if the trees are teaching us about the beauty to be found in impermanence and imperfection which is a reflection of a very human trait.
Visting Paris in 2016 I discovered a cluster of trees on the Seine, which had been heavily inscribed with messages of love and adoration. It smacked of something noble yet futile.
Casting the indentations in clay and taking a take a direct mould in order for them to be cast in glass seemed a most natural pairing with an old Brocante 'find' - a gilded Louis XVIII console table base - which had been waiting patiently for this moment to have life breathed life back into it.
