Slate | DNA of a Dancer
DNA of a Dancer was created as an exploration of movement held in balance, rooted first and foremost in my fascination with the natural world. As with much of my work, the starting point was not the human figure but the underlying structures that govern life itself. The double helix of DNA, the fundamental building block shared by all living things, has an elegance and inevitability that I find endlessly compelling. This sculpture grew naturally from my earlier work Garrochar Twist, continuing an interest in spiralling form, rotation and controlled tension.
I’ve long felt that forms shaped by nature through evolution, particularly those that follow Fibonacci-like rules, resonate on a subconscious level. Perhaps it’s because we’ve coexisted with these patterns for so long, they feel familiar, almost embedded within us. Time and again, I see people drawn to DNA of a Dancer and to other works that take their cues from natural structures, often without quite knowing why.
I’m drawn to forms that appear simple and inevitable, even when they are anything but straightforward to make. It’s often these pieces, understated, grounded and quietly complex, that feel the most resolved.
The influence of dance enters not as representation, but as a way of understanding motion. A dancer twists, coils and rises through space while remaining grounded. That same balance between control and release is what I sought to hold within the form. In excess of a hundred individual pieces of slate are shaped and stacked so the sculpture narrows and expands, compresses and opens, creating a rhythm that draws the eye upward.
Seen in a wide range of settings; from private gardens across Scotland and England, including a formal Suffolk estate captured under snow, to dramatic installations in Whistler, Canada, the sculpture takes on subtly different characters. In Whistler, the piece is set directly into shaped bedrock, creating a powerful dialogue, as though the form were emerging from the earth itself. DNA of a Dancer has also been installed in the United Arab Emirates, demonstrating its ability to sit comfortably within very different climates and cultural landscapes.
DNA of a Dancer can be commissioned at a wide range of scales and, though abstract, it speaks to something universal: growth, movement and the remarkable order that underpins life itself.
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