sculptureinstone2

John Sims Sculpture and Drawing


Stone Carving

I have been making sculpture in stone since 2000, a departure from some thirty odd years as an art director, graphic designer and illustrator.

As much as I enjoy the freedom of working in clay and constructions I invariably return to the restrictions of stone. The material itself, so hard and cold can be transformed by a combination of cutting and rubbing, to take on the appearance of warm skin that belies its cold smoothness. It can be sensuous or brutal, intimate or monumental. A hard mistress, unforgiving and often full of faults.

Drawing

I have been drawing for as long as I can remember...

First birds and animals then illustrations for children's books followed by illustrations for advertising and graphic design companies in London, Middle East and Kent. Later landscapes and images of the Middle East and Kent, all these very detailed and stylised. Then from 2002 and my return to art college to study sculpture, I concentrated on analytical perceptual drawings in pencil from the life model. This helped to not only implant the form of the human body in my visual memory for use in carving, but also to banish the stylised illustrations from my oeuvre.
Now here in Cyprus through a combination of place, dreams and mythology, colour has returned to my drawing through the use of oil pastels, a medium I chose for its clumsy, paint like qualities...no friend of detail, but as close as I can get with a broken stub of it in my hand to drawing with my fingers...a reaction perhaps against all those years of working with 0.1 technical pens and computers.