Since moving back to Wales almost 5 years ago, after many years of working in stone I have at last returned to working in wood which was my preferred medium while I was at Art college.  Currently, I am making taller sculptures and exploring the different possibilities in this medium.  I work most often in oak and have drawn much inspiration from the history within the area of Pembrokeshire where I live.  This has a great influence on my work, and the wood forms I make have a focus on stillness and peace, inspired by standing stones, archaeology and ruined castles. Standing within these castle ruins, I am aware of a sense of peace and time standing still; an atmosphere which pervades these old buildings and which I aim for in my sculptures.

While a sense of peace is the main emphasis in my work, I often sit quietly looking back to the battles that took place there – and my thoughts turn to the conflicts of war and peace, aggression and calm, despair and hope, darkness and light – contrasts that I have started to include in my most recent sculptures to reflect memories of the battles of those times.

These are the themes of my work; towers and pillars carved to illustrate endurance through the ages with their weathered textures and darkened quiet archways. The archways are often charred to a soft velvety blackness to disappear into, like a safe haven, whereas the heavy areas of texture illustrate struggle and friction of war through a more aggressive surface, light in some areas to illustrate hope and breakthrough, dark in others.  

I like my work to be about interacting, being affected by the space that surrounds each work or flows around and between the pairs of works that stand together. I want to take people into a different atmosphere for a while.  I make these sculptures to be absorbed into that stillness, whether it is being immersed in several floor standing forms or just one silent presence up on a plinth.  An escape into a moment of calm and pensive quiet.  My hope is that others will experience my work in the same way.