Lemon bottlebrush paperbark
43 x 15 x 12 cm
The wood is a native Australian tree and is not commonly used for wood sculpture. The form was created by roughly carving a spiral into a small bough and then step by step the walls were refined.
It was at this stage the flowing lines were added to inside walls to accentuate the flow through the timber. Note the bark was left on to add character to the sculpture.
Lemon bottlebrush paperbark
55 x 13 x 11 cm
The wood is a native Australian tree and relatively unknown as sculptural wood. The timber was salvaged from green verge collection. The form was created by roughly carving a spiral into a small bough and then step by step the walls were refined. Sharper angles were created within the spiral form to add interest and emphasize the flow of movement in the form. It was at this stage the flowing lines were added to inside walls to accentuate the flow through the timber. Note the bark was left on to add character to the sculpture and to help with retaining the wood’s identity.
Serendipity III
Kings Park Bottlebrush, oil finish
110 x 20 x 18 cm
This particular bottlebrush is unique to Western Australia. The timber was worked green and then the tail section of the sculpture was soda blasted to the pith, so that only the grain fibers were left. The main part of the sculpture has been refined and then grooves were carved into the wood to support the structure and to allow light to penetrate the spiral form.
Serendipity VI
Elm with a varnish finish
47 x 50 x 25 cm
The vein
structure carved into the paper thin walls, gives strength and integrity to the form. When light is shone on the thin walls it creates the appearance of sinuous membrane and is evocative of a bat’s wings.
Threshold
Swan Valley Woolly bush, knitted wire and varnish
The idea of this form came from the Port Jackson shark which is oviparous, meaning they lay egg capsules instead of giving live birth to their young. The spiral shape allows the egg to be securely wedged between crevices and crack in the ocean floor.
Spiral Pod
Swan Valley
Woolly bush, Currant bush (Gimlet), leaf vein and sterling silver
21 x 17 x
17 cm
The spiral
form is a powerful form creating the idea of movement and energy as it evokes
the idea of constant flow. The extended paddles emanating from the form
accentuate this idea of energy spinning off a simple spiral form. Currant bush
is a goldfields timber and is unique to Western Australia and of limited
availability.
Whorl Hybrid II
Ficus carica, leaf vein, rolled and etched aluminium
70 x 38 x 34 cm
Once the form was carved the timber was soda blasted, so that the harder grain fibers became prominent, giving the wood surface a weathered appearance. In the missing voids within the walls of the spiral, leaf vein was inserted. This material was used to amplify the idea of looking beneath the surface of the wood.
Volute
Kings Park
Bottlebrush, oil finish
45 x 20 x
11 cm
Laminar
flow so named after the streamline movement that flows through the form. The
sculpture has been made out of a beautiful piece of timber, with the form
refined down to two to three millimeters, so that when a strong light is shone
on it the grain of the wood is illuminated.
Laminar Flow
Swan Valley Woolly bush
108 x 42 51 cm
The timber used is unique to Western Australia. The wood was salvaged from a green verge collection. A continuous flow of movement was created by carving a spiral from the butt of the trunk flowing up into the limbs, which were split and refined looking much like ends of ribbons. The blades of the spiral were refined to a thinness of 5 to 3 mm and emphasize the flow of movement in the form, much like ribbons moving in a breeze of air.
Tattered Ribbons
Spiral II
Conifer
panacea and Danish oil
28 x 15 x
18 cm
The wood
was cut into fine fillets, laminated together to create the form and then
further carved until the walls were paper thin, so much so that light
penetrates the sculptural form. This
sculpture culminated out of some research that I did about the Fibonacci
sequence, which reflects an organic growth pattern mirroring many natural
phenomena found in flora.
Extinct
Albany Woolly bush, leaf vein and varnish
12 x 20 x 15 cm
With the introduction of invasive non-native species, many species are declining in number or becoming extinct. The only evidence of their existence are their remains – skeletons/ bones of a past animal.
Of Gossamer Wings
Betweenness
Coastal Myrtle burl, palm fiber, acrylic paint
48 x 32 x 40 cm
I had been experimenting with different types of man made meshes, when I found this natural form of mesh that was aesthetically sympathetic to the carved armature.
This sculptural form emanated from my study of tree coral.
Shadows
Coastal Mrytle burl, leaf vein, varnish finish
38 x 38 x 7 cm
Shadows was an exciting sculpture to create and posed many challenges. The origins of this design comes from studying tree coral.
The strong plant armature supports often a membranous structure that connects between the spines of an armature.