I have a bit of an obsession: My creativity has an affaire de coeur with language, words, letters, stories and narratives. Here's a glimpse into that world of word-addiction...
I often go on treasure hunts in search ofold books, scraps of stories, manuscripts and magazines. I am intrigued with both the visual shapes & patterns of letters and words as they scrawl, meander and march across the page… and also with their wider significance. They are story tellers and signifiers, they represent & depict the world out there beyond the page. They are cunning, devilish, candid, true.
I seek the heart-pounding moment of a find – something which can be appropriated into new works of art. During my material and inspiration sourcing missions, I search through markets, friends bookshelves, attics, bargain bins, old skips and charity shops… On one occasion I rescued a set of beautiful Charles Dickens novels which sadly, were slightly water damaged and consequently had been thrown into a skip, never to be enjoyed or read again. And so a new sculpture entitled ‘David Copperfield’ began…
The story of David Copperfield is a book with lots of settings, sub-stories, changing relationships and changing identities. For me it made sense to try and renew this epic Dickens book by cutting away the damaged sections to reveal a new story existing within the same text. I made the artwork ‘David Copperfield’ by carefully carving away words until I reached a page where the next word fitted within the sentence, and so, word by word, a new, haphazard & eccentric story was revealed.
The images below show some of the story, so feel free to delve in…
The piece is displayed on a quirky, spindly old music stand which took a while to find – but when I saw it, I knew it would be the perfect finishing touch to the sculpture.
(more images here)
