The photographs of Edweard Muybridge have been a great influence in my work. Muybridge is known for his pioneering chronophotography of animal locomotion between 1878 and 1886, which used multiple cameras to capture the different positions in a stride; and for his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting painted motion pictures from glass discs that predated the flexible perforated film strip used in cinematography.[5] From 1883 to 1886, he entered a very productive period at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, producing over 100,000 images of animals and humans in motion, occasionally capturing what the human eye could not distinguish as separate moments in time.
When I draw, I tend to use video footage, to get an idea of what is happening before and after a particular still, and to choose the perfect sculptural moment to capture. The sequential sculptures are an exploration of what is happening when a cartwheel is performed, or a dive, flickflack or whatever. It shows how the weight of the body is thrown over the centre of gravity. I look for the big curved shapes, so that within a set of sculptures there is a feeling of flow.
Initial small studies are made using wire and soft modelling wax. These can easily be re manipulated when fine tuning the overall sequence to make it work sculpturally as well as anatomically. I prefer an odd number of figures in a set, usually five.. The actions that I choose are not completely perfect, and sometimes slightly awkward, to capture a feeling of abandon rather than a precisely correct action. The larger sculptures are made using curved pieces of cut wood, these days recycled, to give crisp facets and the feeling of muscularity.