From Creation

Artist Statement

Since leaving Bath Academy of Art in 1983, Anthony has carved sculptures in different timbers, ranging from naturalistic figures to flower carvings and abstract pieces. He displayed work in several exhibitions throughout the UK in the 80s and 90s. Later, in the early 2000s, he worked in cast bronze and aluminium. After a long break from his sculptural activity to develop his devotional meditative practice which continues to this day, Anthony returned to carving in 2018, carving a series of small box wood plaques, retracing his 13-year journey through meditation. Throughout much of this time, Anthony’s sculptural activity was financially supported by working as a commercial wood carver in architectural interior carving and restoration of antique carving for Ray Coggins Interiors.

Since 1998, Anthony has been teaching wood carving to adults and children from his home in Somerset, which he did for 18 years before moving to Pembrokeshire in 2014. He built a workshop in his garden in Stackpole and has taught wood carving there for the last 7 years.

This is Anthony’s first solo exhibition for 30 years, and features a series of oak, wall-mounted, pierced pieces in relief, completed over the past 3 years and not exhibited before. The exhibition also includes, with much help from Heidi at Popty Press in Haverfordwest, a series of silkscreen prints based on the drawings from which these carvings emerged.

Inspired by nature, and a lifetime of wandering and exploring the Pembrokeshire coastal foot paths, my woodcarvings borrow heavily from the forms of the eroded sedimentary rocks, the traces left behind by wind and tide, footfalls of people, dogs and birds on the sandy beaches. The theme of this exhibition is ‘Creation’ – creation of the universe, the stars, the milky way, the continents, and the creation of fire, water and earth. Creation, expressed as an energetic addition to the emptiness that existed before creation, leading towards form and substance, and the ‘creation’ of the ‘self’ (us), a journey from less to more.

These carvings are not intended to be representational or scientific in any way. The most recent carvings convey the creation of the ‘self’ [us]. These are not meant to resemble real people, but are more about the energy of the self, without a body and without any resemblance of the physical appearance of the self [i.e. gender, race, clothing and social status or material and emotional baggage that accompanies the self] and seeks to locate the self in the cycle of birth, death and re-birth. These carvings are about the essence of the ‘energy’ or ‘vibration’ of the self.

Anthony would like to wholeheartedly thank Molly and the dedicated team at Haverhub, Heidi at Popty Press and Tim Hughes for all their help and support with this exhibition, and for providing such a wonderful space to display these pieces.

Anthony