2026

The Melting Pot

Since restarting my sculpture work at the start of 2024 after a twenty-five year pause, I have enjoyed the ups, downs, and frustrations of rekindling not only my hand/eye skills but also the thought process behind my choices, such as which pieces to commit time to and what artistic outcomes I wanted to achieve.

My first year was spent relearning the basic skills and techniques I needed to complete my sculptural pieces, which had been eroded over time as my work disciplines were focused on team and managerial tasks needed to deliver my chosen desk career.

Within this year, I was able to show and sell pieces, which gave me confidence that I still could produce work that connected with people.

Back when I first started to show my work in 1988, I only created wooden pieces. When I rebooted my artistic career in ’24, I wanted to explore other mediums, such as sculpting in clay and having these pieces cast in acrylic and usually finishing them in a single colour. These pieces formed my ‘Polar Yoga’ series.

Whilst primarily showing my ‘Polar Yoga’ pieces in 2025, I took the opportunity to show some of my wooden pieces, which received excellent feedback and sales, so for 2026 I decided to share my creative time between my acrylic and wooden  

For my wooden pieces, the styling of each piece is defined by the animal’s shape and the laminate lines in the wood to emphasise the form. Each of these works is bespoke, as the creative process to reach the final piece has an uncertain, organic journey to it.

For my acrylic Polar Bears, I was really pleased with the different poses I had created but felt there was an opportunity to apply another artistic finish and/or message onto these bears. The journey to find the answer was extremely rewarding for me as I explored and sought out native art from across the globe to understand how indigenous tribes and peoples used their art to convey messages, capture stories, and their beliefs through their art.

This journey led me to view Aboriginal, Huichol (Mexican), Inca, and Inuit work. I also became struck by the energy and artistry in some of the street graffiti that current urban artists are delivering. Also, at this time, I was reading books about the Arctic and the environmental challenges it faces. This melting pot of imagery and thoughts has led to the styling of my Polar Bear pieces for 2026 as I tried to find an answer to how I could marry a message and artistic styling onto my Polar Yoga Bear poses.