Statement

Art, for me, is a procedural, empirical and experimental process responding to expressive compulsion. Early years as a solitary child on a remote farm, attending a one-room school with limited resources, figuring things out for myself, established a life-long personal method for which Conceptual Art, especially the emphasis on process, and subsequently Systems seemed uniquely appropriate. As a sculptor, previous study of landforms, ceramics and figurative art, directed me towards the, then unfashionable, curvilinear, biomorphic forms, made from inexpensive, flexible, vinyl. This method permitted maximum experimentation, and the creation of large numbers of forms without incurring storage problems. It is important that, when inflated, these soft forms have a life-like presence. It is also important that structures are found not imposed.

All the soft sculpture is drawn out from an elemental cell-like shape made by seaming and inflating two flat discs. As an example, in the set of work entitled "Anolatabulata", infinite variants can be made by a series of topological transformation that begins when each pair of discs is cut into four yin-yang dew-drop shapes. Each of these shapes can be variously rotated before the edges are re-assembed.

The metaphor for biological diversity comes from the fecundity of topological transformation and the fact that the resultant abstract forms often look like those found in nature. The spiral as a metaphor for the life-force came about after eventually seeing that the juxtaposition of paired spirals was the underlying and principle geometrical factor in all of the work and that this seems to be so in nature and in the universe. The spiral also became the basis for a personal insight into the workings of the Universe. Color as a metaphor for light reflects my sense that all substance is a compression of light.