The Cuckoo and the Tadpole

Imagine listening to a cuckoo and observing tadpoles... When I do this it stimulates a deep sense of wonder in me. Such wonders of perception pose many questions and inspire me to search further for significant meaning. This is the motivation which drives my need to create sculptures.

Symbols
Within the culture around me I am confronted with the mass of symbols that we employ not only in spoken language, but also in written language. These are abstract modes of expressions that, for example, refer to colours and rituals. A symbol represents a part of reality whereby its meaning can be abstracted from a real object and combined with other symbols to form different meanings. In the milieu of a contemporary culture which process is dominated by mass media and mobility; the meaning of these symbols are constantly changing.

I can shop where I live and what I come across is a broad and sometimes bizarre selection of religious carvings and effigies of people and animals from all over the world. Most importantly, each piece is an expression of a visual language built on rich cultural and temporal heritages. The iconographies I come across while window shopping form a purely visual language in their own right; context determines the relation between aesthetics and cultural content

The symbol is not portrayed as ’devils’ so as taught by the headmaster at school in the past. The unknown is now an exhibition in someone’s front window. I am amazed at the variety of bric-a-brac I come across. For example, have you ever seen a hare with the colours of a giraffe?

With the help of technology the landscape opens up its secrets. It was once stated that technology alienates us from our natural surroundings. I see this differently. If there is a question of alienation, it is a difference we have been aware of to some degree since the beginning of time. In the caves of Lascaux in France man was painted as a hybrid: A person as a bull. The ’bull-man’ was therefore aware that he was different and wished to become one with his natural environment, expressing this desire in paint.

History

To broaden my perception of sense in life I travel by as many different means as possible from walking and flying to sitting on the back of a mule. I try to discover what my predecessor Homo Erectus may once have experienced and I do this of my own free will. Unlike my predecessor, my travel is not made out of necessity, to gather food, but to discover space and time. If I wish to understand what my epoch is all about then I can look back to the past, it shows that cultures already influenced each other.
This forms an acculturation process that in turn shows that eclectatisism (choosing out the best) existed long before today. In my view, development is continual and man takes an innovative approach to much of what he does.
I find creativity one of our better characteristics. It stimulates our curiosity and ensures that our capability to adapt remains active.

The modern consumer can begin to experience the world after a visit to a travel agent. But if actual travel is too inconvenient, the world can also be experienced virtually. Blogs and other forms of travel writing on the internet portray the climate and images of different countries very convincingly; you can see it all in colour, and even hear everything...live in your own home!

Just like the armchair tourist, I, as an artist, use mass media to gather information. For example, while I’ve never been to the Amazon, I know that the Amazon Rainforest is a beautiful place, thanks wholly to mass media. I can almost smell the forest. I can see the colours of the flowers and hear animal sounds. I don’t even have to imagine how big and high the trees are. I may even be disappointed if I went there. The media sources are edited, so I don’t have to see the less interesting bits, ’just the good stuff’.

Insects don’t bite or sting and you don’t have to worry about contracting life-threatening diseases. The above is a description about two different worlds. In one you have a life and death struggle. In the other you live in comfort, both are mediated through media.

My work is about creativity in culture and the pleasure that this ethos can give. I am interested not only in the hedonistic sense, but also in the pleasure of looking further and therefore not taking the things around me for granted. The manner in which I see the world is influenced and developed by media around me. Without this influence I would not have made a lot of the work I have made. My sculptures convey to viewers how these outside influences help create form. With an open mind towards the unknown, I create a synthesis between my feelings and my visual form language as a sculptor.