Slab XIII - ceramic torso length 820mm

Standard I - two ceramic torsos (female, front and back print) mounted back-to-back on a steel stand in the manner of a classical limbless statue or mannequin.

Total Weight: c. 17kg, height 1750mm

Comprises:

Torso Slab XXVI - female front - height 790mm, width 390mm, weight 6kg

Torso Slab XXVII - female back - height 860mm, width 340mm, weight 8kg

Stand weight 3kg, base width 530mm

My practice includes image making by drawing, painting, photography and printing in combination, and in unusual ways particularly using my own body.

I create installations using prints and drawings along with video and sculpture. Video sequences I record during the process of making Slab Torso sculptures.

The Slab Torsos are great fun to make. Their making allows an interaction of body with the soft quality of clay, a ritualized, primitive mark making and sculpting of soft clay. The torsos are surreal, three-dimensional abstractions displaying the body's surface in considerable detail. In their reflection-inversion printed surface (real bodies have lain on the clay to print their skin) and positive/negative form (some of the indents are reversed after the body has lifted off the clay slab) the corporeal nature of the human body is re-presented ambiguously.

The male body is the theme of my work. I am interested in male emotions and the complexity of male sexuality represented by the external appearance of a man. I am addressing the taboos associated with exposing the male body. These matters are reflected in the manner of display of the slabs and the video loop, in which part of the process is illustrated. Performances, and the presentation of earlier performances, will form part of my future installations.