SCULPTURE IN THE LANDSCAPE (MEMORY, SCALE, IMPACT)

This thesis deals with the product of three years of work as an installation-sculptor. The medium of my choice has been water in its frozen form. Throughout the three projects submitted, I have kept a full photographic record of each one since by their nature all of them were ephemeral and transient. The works constitute a kind of 'procession' of new challenges. However, although the first two projects were figurative and the third and fourth abstract, all outcomes are connected by what I would like to think of as a combination of memory and time. After an Introduction dealing with the sources and inspirational background to the work submitted, I have followed each individual project on the basis of a description of methodologies, research and inspirational paradigms in order to create a detailed autobiographical insight into the nature of my creative work during the period of my research for this degree; Rather than disperse my writing into a labyrinth of bibliographical exercises, I have adopted the role of "maker of things", and addressed the supporting text to the need to actually consider the possibility of submitting a corpus of material that makes Art History rather than re-searching it. In each of the three parts, I have dealt with the nature of the commission and the impact of site upon the structural and formal problems and challenges. The composer, Harrison Birtwistle once stated that all of his music was one single massive outcome. Whilst I cannot say at this time that this is the case in my work, I can at least confidently assert that each project dealt with in this thesis is part of a continuum, albeit one that is derived from an almost biological process of metamorphosis. Though some of the works are literally iterative, their sources have arisen from the consideration of ancient wisdom(s) and artefacts; where the presence of iterative formal units is quite common. I have tried to write a clear and incisive series of 'essays' on each project and to place each in the context of progressive experimentation. The consequence of this research has been to provide me with a far greater understanding of the qualities of sites and landscapes and of the most appropriate ways in which to respond to those performative habitats