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'Atlantic Realm' is a series of pieces based on
ideas spawned from my various trips out to the East Coast. (The image used
in the title block above was taken the first time I saw an ocean, off Cape
Breton in 1978).
I love beach combing. Not only is the environment itself cleansing for me
(regardless of the weather), I have always be fascinated by the undersea
world. (I started skin diving at about age 10.)
These are in fact some of the very first purely sculptural pieces I created
(as opposed to objects where function was the primary criteria).
Enter the Atlantic
Realm...
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These pieces represent an ongoing series of designs,
based on fossil fish and ancient sea creatures. Aggressively forged steel
bars are pinched and folded to create spines and other bone like shapes.
A long student of armour making, and interested in both fossils and insects
since I was a child, my past work with hammered sheet was turned to forming
bony plates, skulls and fins.
Enter the Shades
of Ancient Seas...
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The Burgess
Shale in SE British Columbia is an absolutely unique deposit, rich in
fossils, which dates to roughly 500 million years ago. First, the fine silt
which eventually turned to stone has faithfully recorded even the soft tissues
of the animals that once lived there. And what animals! Creatures from the
'Cambrian Explosion' show a bewildering array of types and body plans. The
result of sudden evolution after a major extinction event, most types never
survived into later ages. Some are so strange, so outright bizarre, that
to our modern eyes they look to be the product of a crazed dream. The pieces
in this newer series are inspired by these wonderful fossils.
Enter Halluciegenia...
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