#freedom

"The outdoor and indoor works are complementary, although I would have to say that nature, the landscape, the walking, is at the heart of my work and informs the indoor works. But the art world is usually received 'indoors' and I do have a desire to present real work in public time and space, as opposed to photos, maps and texts, which are by definition 'second hand' works. A sculpture feeds the senses at a place, whereas a photograph or text work feeds the imagination. For me, these different forms of my work represent freedom and richness – it's not possible to say 'everything' in one way."

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“My work has become a simple metaphor of life. A figure walking down his road, making his mark. It is an affirmation of my human scale and senses: how far I walk, what stones I pick up, my particular experiences”

“My photographs are facts which bring the right accessibility to remote, lonely or otherwise unrecognizable works. Some sculptures are seen by few people, but can be known about by many. My outdoor sculptures and walking locations are not subject to possession and ownership. I like the fact that roads and mountains are common, public land. My outdoor sculptures are places. The material and the idea are of the place; sculpture and place are one and the same. The place is as far as the eye can see from the sculpture. The place for the sculpture is found by walking.”

“I like to see art as being a return to the 'senses'.”

“The source of my work is nature. I use it with respect and freedom. I use materials, ideas, movement and time to express a whole view of my art in the world.”

“Nature has always been recorded by artists, from prehistoric cave paintings to twentieth-century landscape photography. I too wanted to make nature the subject of my work, but in new ways. I started working outside using natural materials like grass and water, and this evolved into the idea of making a sculpture by walking … My first work made by walking, in 1967, was a straight line in a grass field, which was also my own path, going ‘nowhere’. In the subsequent early map works, recording very simple but precise walks on Exmoor and Dartmoor, my intention was to make a new art which was also a new way of walking: walking as art.”

“My art is the essence of my experience, not a representation of it.”