The city is an incredible cross section of the world we live in. It contains every aspect of our society in a small concentrated physical area.
We can find all the dreams that people aspire for, as well as all the darkness of those unfulfilled ambitions. It is a place of absolute duality on so many levels. From abundant wealth to poverty, happiness to sadness, love to hate, light to dark, clean to dirty, beauty to ugliness, etc.... We can find it all in the city. We are all small but vital cogs in the machine that is the Capital, be it working in the city, living in the centre, the suburbs or having a picnic in the park.
People often slur the city with negativity, as in it shows us all that is wrong with the world. I disagree, the city is a beautiful and inspiring place that in my experience brings out the best in people. I have seen so many acts of kindness between strangers as I have walked around the streets. It is all about communication and interacting with the people and place around us, hence the piece is called London Calling and contains the iconic Phone boxes. The reason for the edition being 91, is that it is 91 years since the first red K2 phone box was introduced in London. The phone boxes changed the look of the and city and instantly became an icon of London.
Practically speaking this is by far the most ambitious and largest edition piece I have embarked on to date. Every single piece contains so many parts that all have to be made. This means that every piece is really a one - off work. No two can be exactly the same.
The trees in the edition are each made by hand out of 60 pieces of wire that are twisted together and sculpted. The phone boxes themselves are cast, but have to be hand carved for detail, windows cut out, glued together and painted. With the church and the house I am using a new technology to me, for the first time. Each building is made up of over 20 separate pieces, that are 3D printed. Then they have to be cleaned up, carved back for detail, primed, painted and patinated, glued together and finally added to the sculpture. As far as the Skyscrapers go, these are wood, 6 pieces of hand cut mirror, wooden board, and laser cut plywood. I could go on about the process more, but as you can tell it is a lengthy one, and this does not even cover the carved and cast people that populate the piece, which again are my most ambitious figures to date.
