This sculpture, ‘Hillesoya Beach’, is part of a series of seven made as a result of a long journey from Norwegian Lapland, through Finnish Lapland and into Sweden. Each piece is accompanied by an essay that is an account of the journey that led to the discovery of the objects that are within in the individual works. Each will be regularly featured in the gallery.

Indirectly they came about as a result of making ‘Time Triangles – 365 Sculptures for a Year’, part of which is also featured here.

Of these, ‘Hillesoya Beach’ was the first. I had no intention of making work as a result of this journey; it just happened. It’s just a matter of keeping one’s eyes and mind open to the opportunity, and then making a decision whether or not to act . The choice is always ours to make.

These objects were all found at the very ends of journeys, at that exact point of reaching a place, and then turning back, like the very last wave up a beach before the high tide turns and returns. To give a flavour of what this means, the three things in ’Hillesoya Beach’, a feather, a stick and a crayfish shell, were found on the very last stone on the last beach in NW Norway before the land slides into and under the sea for the last time. Getting to that point had meant driving from Macclesfield to Newcastle, sailing to Bergen, a six day boat journey to Tromso in N Norway, a long drive North West before the road gave out, and then a walk to this unmarked, but remarkable beach of silver sand. At the end of this beach stands an isolated rock, a feeding station for birds and white with their droppings. Beyond the rock is absolutely nothing up to and beyond the horizon : continental Europe has slipped quietly out of sight and under the sea.

On the top of this last rock lay these three objects, left behind by the birds. At that moment it was as though I had travelled all these many days, and these thousands of miles just to be given these three objects in this place, and at that moment yet another creative process could begin again, with an, as yet, unknown endpoint.

Read the full essay

There is a similar story behind all these sculptures, just as there must be a story behind every work of art ever made. The actual ‘object’ that is the artwork is the smallest tip of an immense iceberg of experiences, emotions and influences that the maker has lived, is living, and will live through. Without the maker - the artist : the human being – the work of art could not have existed.

These have led to a new series of sculptures being developed from less ‘intrepid adventures’; walks of a more local nature within which there are gems of similar discoveries to be made.