LIFEBOAT - SHAPING UP

Not quite finished yet but almost.....I started planning 'Lifeboat' about 2 years ago, gathering the materials, thinking about how to express all the feelings and narratives which underpin it. It's largely made from materials that were thrown away, left out for recycling, not valued - but they were, by me....
A broken globe which I could carve, a broken oud left outside a house in South London discovered during lockdown walks, wooden spatulas from Poundland. I combined these elements with 'books' which I made from painted papers and foam core, a 3D print of a scan of myself - thanks to VR artist Sean Rodrigo and many sheets of gold foil a gift from Eliza Cooey.

Assembling the elements of this work has taken many months - often using techniques that were unfamiliar and not easy.

It's not quite finished yet and the next headache is how to photograph it, because none of the surfaces I have in the studio is the right fit! These photos show a cobbled together solution. Once I find a way of creating the right surface I will re photograph and film it.

That's all the tech side of things - what about the meaning you may ask?
Well, the books represent the things that have happened to me, the stories that have shaped my life, the library which contains them is my own life, it is lined with gold because the world of books, the stories of all of us, is such a precious one. The oud is an Arabic instrument which I love - the name itself means wood, the miniature golden forest represents the forest of transformation provided by books, art and music.  Just like some of my previous works 'Lifeboat' is about the inescapable link between trees, wood, paper and written stories -  how important it is to 'plant more trees!'