ONE SMALL SEED MAGAZINE Issue #29 Digital 04 THE BEST OF | Page 46

Could you please describe how on earth you
create these mesmerising images?
My work is made in a three-dimensional environment
using software called Maya. I have used just about
every medium in my life and sculpted in a variety of
materials; they’re all the same – just tools to bring out
the fire in your heart and mind. It doesn’t matter what
you use, whether it’s paint or a computer or knitting
or building ships out of toothpicks, creation of what
you love is the best thing I have found against all the
cruel destruction in this world. Use anything but create
what you love. There are a lot of ingredients that go
into any work of art and I suppose most of them are
things that can’t be seen like desire and need, pain
and obsession and love and joy and wonder. Those
things are just as important as the tools and without
them the tools would be useless.
In a sense I guess you might be more aptly
described as a sculptor than a painter?
The work is very sculptural but a lot of other things
come into play. I originally studied architecture and
often I am designing interiors and buildings or I might
be poring over references to hairstyles of the 18th
century or the 1950s and twisting the curves that create hair into a period style. Lighting and photography
come into play as a knowledge of cameras and lights
make up an important part of the virtual world. It’s
all a bit of everything and even though you see just
a still image there truly is a room with a figure and a
cabinet – and inside the cabinet there may be hidden
things the viewer never sees – but they are there and
the unseen things are just as important to me as those
things that can be seen.
Do you conceive of the entire scene prior to
starting work on it or does it coalesce in the
working process?
I usually start off with an idea or a dream or a feeling
that I can’t stop thinking about and after starting the
process I find that it gradually starts to change into
what It wants to be, rather than what I had in mind.
It’s a very intuitive and fluid way of working when you
can walk around inside your work. Things can change
on a whim and in a moment you find yourself working
on something that you feel is being directed by someone or something else. It’s not like working on a fixed
picture as the point of view can be from anywhere and
even when you think it’s about one thing it starts to
manipulate you and change into quite another thing
entirely. You begin to value the momentary decisions
made in your intuitive subconscious rather than being
ruled by the planning and fear-based control that the
rational conscious mind works by.

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one small seed

‘I usually start off with an idea or a dream or a feeling
that I can’t stop thinking about and after starting the
process I find that it gradually starts to change into what
It wants to be, rather than what I had in mind.’