Biography
Born 1942 Pretoria. As a sculptor he’s mostly self-taught applying a natural manual dexterity to different materials to express his changing styles, cast bronze and wood carvings predominate as his media. Originally, a borrowed book on Michael Angelo’s marble carvings inspired his first clay torso, and led him to take part-time sculpture classes at Johannesburg School of Art. He has been exhibiting since 1969 when he received two awards. Social comment in his work has tended to be mostly derived from personal experience e.g. “Loss of Our First Born” for H.F. Oppenheimer 1972 (which they call “a man and a woman”). The double helix resonated deeply in his consciousness and has appeared in a number of works over the years e.g. he was commissioned to carve a Celtic cross, “Tree of Life Celtic Cross” 2007, where the double helix represents the tree. Received an award to research ancient Celtic art from Hi-Arts & Highland & Island Enterprise 2009. His recent works are extrapolations of some Celtic knots into three dimensions as a departure point. He and his wife have lived nine and a half years in the Outer Hebrides where he is currently responding to offers of more commissions. These came as he announced that he will be returning to South Africa, where he hopes to settle and re-establish himself. 'Recently I have been involved in making a very difficult plaster mould from a wood carving, never exhibited, which I intend to produce in ceramic. 'Black Madonna' is a bust 1/2 life size. People around me ask why I bother to cast the carving saying they'd rather carve another piece, but I've always enjoyed the transformation from one material into another.'
