On spheres and the universe

You may notice the prevalence of the circle in my work. I found it in my ‘Swalkeling’ collection, used it to frame the views in the series ‘Newsblitz’ and it broke out in ‘Omicron / Volcano’ to a full-blown installation. I think of the circle as the sign of human existence, this is the oldest geometric sign known before Euclid, that we can attribute to the hand of the human race. Obviously, the wheel and many technologies still rely on our capacity to draw this perfect thing with a circumference of 2πR. At the same time, as I have explored in my ‘Earth Day’ paintings, the sphere also immediately reminds us of the earth and the solar system, especially the moon. I notice in the recent Haywood Gallery, London ‘Dear Earth’ show, the repeated use of the circle and the sphere to refer to our planet, it seems this motif is still a part of common parlance.

I think my former years of researching Mediaeval iconography have percolated through to my practice. Mediaeval imagery found in manuscripts and made public on religious buildings, in particular schematically arranged on doorway entrances, represented the link between the universe and the cycles of the Earth’s seasons, connecting the church to daily agrarian routines. Images of hickling and threshing connected seasonal work with the cosmos. An all-in-one micro to macro infographic using ‘roundels’. In those days to walk into a sacred space, was to have an immersive experience of diving into a portal which explained your existence. The medieval ideas are alluringly explored by Jack Hartnell in his ‘Medieval Bodies’ an amazing read, the completely different concept of the body, time and space in this era is mind blowing. With the primacy of visual culture today, this kind of study is still totally relevant.

I made my installation ‘Omicron / Volcano’ with a surplus of ice cream tub lids and have been searching but failed to find a supplier of more lids ever since. The good news is that I have now a new studio assistant in the form of an enormous round hole puncher ! It has already been put to work, cutting cardboard in preparation for scaling-up to my next installation. This simple mechanical genius is giving me a lot of cosmic power !