I showed the series of photographs ‘Making a Promise’ at my exhibition, ‘What are we going to do with all this stuff?’ at DINA Sheffield in September. Here are some images and text about the works.

One aspect of making sculpture is working with the physicality of materials, using the assets of the materials one chooses as a language. This can make sculptors obsessive about gathering materials that may become a new adjective or verb.

As an artist who also facilitates others in making sculpture, I am constantly looking for equivalent materials to those used by ‘professional’ sculptors that can be used safely, without having a high level of skill and yet have an immediacy of presence and three-dimensionality. I often find these materials in DIY and trade shops or on eBay.

‘Making a promise’ is a kind of catalogue of some of the materials I have amassed, showing a range of different types and their abilities to be manipulated simply or not. It shows the promise these materials have to become tangible metaphors.

I made a series of small sculpture where I combined two different materials. Having photographed them I decided that the images have more presence than the physical objects as due to their larger scale, they reveal details and nuances of how the materials behave.

I have taken the unprecedented step for me in presenting the work only as photographs. This gives this ephemeral work made from cheap materials an altered value.  It exists in a different space, can be reproduced and therefore shown and sold in a different way to sculpture.

I collaborated with artist Peter Griffiths to take the photographs. They are inkjet prints on Museum Heritage paper.