Continuing Casting and Exploring Composition.

After the success of my previous four ‘Sound Carving’ negative space plaster casts, and in response to the grid structure of the sixteen paper ‘Sound Drawings’, I decided to create a series of sixteen ‘Sound Carving’ plaster casts which would embody some form of subjective/alternative measurement, like the previous sculptures and drawings.

Balls of Found Clay Ready to be Sculpted in Response to the Sound of 16 Waves at Pendennis Point

4 'Sound Sculptures' in Response to the Sound of 16 Waves at Pendennis Point, Ready to be Cast

The number ‘sixteen’ played a key role in this series of works. I sculpted each of the sixteen clay works for the duration of sixteen waves breaking at Pendennis Point beach, moulding the clay in response to the sound they produced, responding to the intensity and speed of each wave.

These works were completed over a number of days – as my wooden mould only accommodated two casts at a time and because the clay needed to still be malleable to remove it from the plaster, I was only able to complete four casts per day (sculpting the clay at the beach in the morning, then casting two sets of two sculptures in the afternoon). The outcome of this entire process was sixteen ‘Sound Carvings’ which each represented the sound energy of sixteen waves in a more tangible format: I had represented 256 waves in this series of cast works.

This whole process was rather ritualistic in its nature. I was beginning each day with a walk into the landscape; walking from the town, through residential areas, past the industrialism of the docks, into the woods and then finally down onto the rocky beach at Pendennis Point. Then I was repeatedly dividing up the clay, and blindly sculpting it with my hands in response to sixteen waves each time, before walking back to cast the sculptures in plaster in the afternoon. This ritualistic nature of completing these works was very fitting to the subject itself; the waves, which almost ritualistically break and crash all day, every day. This series of casts, without me initially realising it, were rather holistically representative of the sea itself.

'Sound Carvings' in a Grid Format

'Sound Carvings' in an Unorganised Layout

I began exploring the layout and presentation of the multiple casts now that they were all complete, experimenting with the grid structure as well as beginning to break it up. The grid provides a certain order, along with the square-edged casts, to the natural hollows of the pieces, making these organic forms and hues more explicit as a contrast, more so than if the entire sculpture was natural-looking.

The lack of structure in an unorganised layout feels like they are just a collection of works that do not necessarily work together as a whole cohesive piece, the grid composition ties them together and the series as a whole is much more coherent to look at in that format.