Seed 1
Wood, copper, found objects, cement, 2012
The Seed series of kinetic sculptures is inspired by the forms of flying seeds, and the organic meshing that generates all life.
Inspired by the processes and structures in photosynthesis, this sculpture places an organic form derived from the shapes of leaves and sails into connection with the complexity of hand-made gears. The elegant and arching sail pairs with a concentrated core where intricately moving detail clusters — these contrasting elements are poised and counterpoised off each other, in a dance of light and density.
Flying seeds carry a densely packed kernel of life and nutritive matter, welded to a delicate wing able to catch winds and carry the seed to new ground. These two aspects are reflected in the Seed series, where a cluster of working parts transitions into a smoothly curving form. Elegance and intricacy, as well as stillness and motion, are joined in the Seed sculptures.
They incorporate hand-formed gears of wood, metal and concrete. These turning and intermeshing forms are reminders that interconnection is at the core of every living thing. A seed is literally the result of fertilisation: a combination between individuals of the species. Plants often take this interconnection even further, when their fertilisation is enabled by the actions of birds, bees and other insects.
A cast cement gear revolves around the wooden core.
One of the gears is hand-carved out of ply layered into a solid block; plywood is normally used as a sheet, but here it becomes solid mass. Where the wing component joins with the gear, the two forms blend into each other. The gear can be seen as an organic extension of the sail, and vice versa. They have very different symbolic characteristics: the nature of a sail is to receive, whereas the gear symbolises driving mechanical processes and active transfer of energy. This sculpture brings together the passivity of reception with active transformation into an assembly in which neither exists without the other.
The second gear is cast in concrete and is mounted on a copper and iron assembly so it is able to rotate around the wood gear. These two together form a condensed evocation of interaction, movement and meshing.
