My love of concrete began when I was living in Harajuku, Tokyo back in 1997. I used to love getting lost roaming around the back streets of Harajuku, Aoyama and Omotesando marvelling at the concrete buildings and residential homes in those neighbourhoods. It was at this time that I also became interested in brutalist Architecture. Many years later, I was down in Takamatsu City shooting a wedding. A friend had told me about a group of islands in the Seto sea that were known for their contemporary art museums, architecture and outdoor sculptures. When I saw a photo of the Benesse Art Museum on Naoshima Island I immediately scraped my tongue off the floor and booked my ferry ticket. The museum and sprawling outdoor concrete sculpture complex was designed by the master of concrete architecture Tadao Ando. I learned later that Ando had also designed many of the buildings I saw and loved on my walks around Tokyo. Naoshima is an art lover’s paradise with many Japanese artists living and working there. The southern part of the Island is home to a vast amount of outdoor sculptures, architectural projects and artworks from prominent Japanese and international artists. Many of which utilise concrete as the main building material. I only had one day on Naoshima, but I was so blown away by what I saw that I left the island a fully fledged disciple of concrete in all its wonderful manifestations. In 2017 I started to experiment with my own ideas by casting thin concrete plates with geometric patterns that were initially intended to be hung on walls. I became a little (a lot) obsessed with making coloured concrete domes using oxides which I set into the plates. I also set them in concrete monolith sculptures of various heights and colours along with various metals. The whole process of making the form, setting the concrete and waiting to pull the form away is so magical to me. You never know exactly what you’re going to get, and for me that process is pure alchemy and a joy every time. Throughout covid I made the decision tostart showing my work online and contacting galleries for representation. I’m now represented by 19 Karen Gallery on the Gold Coast of Australia. All of my sculptures and objects are made using bespoke moulds and formwork that have been designed and created by myself. I mix and pour all concrete batches by hand and each object has its own unique characteristics. As a firm believer in the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi (the appreciation of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”) I’m always eager to see what ‘imperfections’ have set into the objects as I remove them from their moulds. I believe that like all things in the natural world, it’s the differences, and the appreciation of those differences that makes a thing unique, and inherently beautiful. Images I shot during a recent trip to Japan. These are some of the buildings that initially inspired me on my walks around Tokyo and on Naoshima Island.
