Beginnings

Hi I'm Rob Johnsey, a mature student studying Fine Art at University College Falmouth. I haven't written a blog before so how do I do this? Even Facebook has me confused!

First a confession to make. I have already made my sculpture as part of my studies here in Falmouth. This blog will tell the story of its making.

Being shortlisted for the competition has been really good for me. It has revitalised my interest in 3 dimensional work at a time when I was spending more of my time on drawing and painting and less on construction.

This is what I wrote in my diary once I had decided to make a sculpture for a public space:

In this project I tried to express my fascination with natural forms.

Exotic fruits, shells, fossils, the human form and the landscape itself appeal to my visual and tactile senses. My work is really about expressing my feelings for such things in a mostly visual way.

I decided to make a sculpture, which complimented and seemed to fit the environment in which it was placed. At the same time I wanted to explore some other aspects of sculpture which interested me. I find the contrast between organic forms and the more regular geometric shapes intriguing. I like the visual effects made when the natural colours of wood are contrasted with synthetic colours of paint. In a similar way, the contrast between a man-made object and a natural setting holds the essence of what I wanted to achieve.

I think of sculpture as a way of experimenting with the three-dimensional world. I like to find out what happens if …? At the same time I think of it as a way to explore the human mind. What is it capable of imagining? What can it produce that has never been produced before?

I had made small things before which might fit inside a house alongside the furniture. This new thing was going to be really BIG!