The Idea Wasn’t There
I don’t start with an idea. Or at least, not in the way people tend to imagine. When I make a work, there’s no clear image in my head. What happens...
Shape As Structure
Structure is not only created only through the strength of a material. It can also emerge from how forces are organised within a form. For example:...
My Bamboo Education in Bali
As an artist trying to understand bamboo, I went to Bali to study the structural languages developed there. Bali is the home of contemporary bamboo...
Bali’s Bambu Indah: A Working Lab for Material and Structure
I visited the Bambu Indah eco-resort while in studying bamboo construction in Bali. What I found was something like a working laboratory where...
Situating My Practice: Lessons from Bali’s Green School
The Green School in Bali represents an enormous body of knowledge about contemporary bamboo practice. It’s the global reference point for bamboo...
Working thematically and in Series
I am greatly influenced by Henry Moore’s idea of a form having a “power of expression.” I work until I recognise that a structure carries this...
Form Studies: Bamboo Hyperbolic Paraboloids
Often used in contemporary Asian bamboo architecture, a hyperbolic paraboloid is a doubly-curved surface, simultaneously concave and convex. This...
Working with Irregularity: Bamboo Weaves
There’s often a tension between human conception and working with natural materials. The 'random weave' technique, in particular (involves no plan,...
Studio Process & Materials
My studio is a laboratory for exploring what bamboo can become through structure, sculpture, and experiment. It is a space of creating, testing, and...
Understanding Form through Bamboo Maquettes
Creating bamboo maquettes as a precursor to larger structures is a traditional process used by Balinese and Vietnamese bamboo carpenters. Following...
Prototype Bamboo Furniture
Bamboo is well known for its furniture and building potential. I wanted to explore how this was done, and since bamboo carpentry is quite distinct...
Exploratory Bamboo Assemblies
A constantly-evolving series of material experiments with bamboo assembly. The work ranges across structures, maquettes, furniture, and sculptural,...
Experimental Bamboo Joinery, Lashing and Weaving
My work often involves experimenting with different bamboo connection and joinery techniques. My prevailing interest is what bamboo can do, so I...
Developing Idol forms through Offcuts
Some of my work is based on death and what remains. It seems to me that we cannot not be our ancestors. Physiologically, we are composites of the...
Who Wants To Live Forever?
Today is my two-hundred and fifteenth birthday. I traipse across my cave and bludgeon my foot on a stone. A rotten toenail tears away, and I...
Baby
My mother groaned! My father wept.Into the dangerous world I leapt:Helpless, naked, piping loud;Like a fiend hid in a cloud. Struggling in my...
Using Gridshells to build Festival Structures
Bamboo construction is arguably its largest global use. So, in the spring of 2025 I spent a month studying bamboo construction with the bamboo...
The Karma Map Dome – Building with Bamboo at Tribal Earth
The Karma Map Dome – Building with Bamboo at Tribal EarthThe Karma Map dome quickly became a focal point at Tribal Earth Festival — children played...
The Psychology of Art – What Art Teaches us About Being Human (Psychological Therapy)
“The Unconscious” – A piece I did recently to evoking the many archetypes, fears, and voices we carry within. Layered digital collage of ritual...
Jung and the Psychology of Art – Six Psychological Artworks
In August I began a course, Art and Individuation, held online by the Centre for Applied Jungian Studies in South Africa. This was an in-depth look...