‘Dual Forms’

An old merchant sailor – a neighbour of my parent’s in the seaside town where I grew up – lent me his extraordinary collection of ornate Chinese carved ivory to draw when I was a student. Amongst the items were a number of multi-layered ‘puzzle balls‘. Though the ethics of the material appalled me, the intricacy and complexity, achieved by the master carver, fascinated and amazed me. The almost magical idea of trapping one painstakingly and delicately carved object inside the body of another, whilst leaving the inner form free to move, would emerge many decades later in these ‘Dual Forms’ – once I myself had put in the many years required to master my own materials.