Arundel festival,2019

 My attitude towards the sculpture and what it means not only for the roundabout in which is displayed but also for my own portfolio has changed. It was very tempting to make a sculpture that I am comfortable with; a polished, well presented, safe sculpture. I would not have learned anything and therefore would have been disconnected with my own work. So in the process of making the work I reflected on what this project is actually about: worries, fears and expectations. I realised that in all the major works or exhibitions that I’ve done in the past the common theme was dealing with the fear of taking risks and not just repeating something that I am comfortable with; so this project is no different. 

I chose to treat the surfaces of the oil barrels as sketchbook pages and move as far as possible from constrain of beauty in public art. The drums white surface paint is reminiscent  a sketchbook page actually is and its purpose to record thoughts and ideas, not always with a narrative. It was important to me to show this process. I believe the drums should be seen not for what they are but for what they represent: a place where ideas are born, a universe where there is no room for criticism because there is no beauty and there is no wrong.  In a sense this sculpture is lifting the curtains on the inner workings of an artist in the very early stages of an art piece before it is about something and when it is “just”, just playing, just having fun, just experimenting. 

The geometric shapes spilling out of the oil drum represent freedom, fluidity and release of pressure. It is suffocating the plinth by wrapping itself around it in a smooth continuous line.  The release of the rusty geometrical structure is a metaphor for letting go to fears that have bottled up inside these vessels and by exposing them they can be reflected upon. 

I started this project by thinking I will be making a sculpture about the everyday worries, money, safety, love. I was going to express all of this in my art that I create. When working on it all these fears have been lifted and replaced with creative problems like what colour should that be? How tall? Which direction should it face? These problems have no importance in real world and answering them will have no impact on anybody’s life but at that time they mean everything. And maybe this is what art does, offers you a parallel universe where everyday problems don’t matter and you can create and make everything no matter how big or small.