I was invited to bring a piece of work up to the gallery to see how it sat in the space. Inner Being 2 sat in the window looking out onto Beak Street, yes, this was the perfect setting.

Finally finished my Masters in Sculptural Practice, what a wonderful two years, here is a summary of that experience:
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Critical reflection MA Sculptural Practice
 
 On 23 June 1981, it was my sixteenth birthday and the last day of senior school. It was then, the happiest day of my life. I struggled academically, leaving with 3 CSE’s in art, home economics and biology. If I had known then I was dyslexic and not thick, I may have enjoyed those 5 years a little more.
 
34 years later and look at me now! I have just finished a Masters. Happy? oh yes but for totally different reasons. Happy for a sense of achievement I never imagined that day I walked out of school. Happy for my ability to learn and keep learning and yes I can now write ‘art bollocks’ – well that’s how it sounded to me before I came to Colchester Institute in 2008 to begin my BA.
 
I began this Masters in Sculptural Practice to underpin my work with a deeper sense of meaning and to justify my notions in an academic written language, supported by theory and an extended knowledge of the subject of portrait sculpture.
 
My original proposal was to research iconic self-portraits to understand the principles underpinning their production and reception such as composition, eyes and surface decoration. I now know that what I actually should have said (to put this into the language of an aspiring academic) that I am studying the ‘Academic habit and hierarchy of composition-contour-chiaroscuro-colour’ Batchelor, D. (2000) in that order. Here I discovered how colour and tone can alter perception. I now look at colour in a completely different light thanks to the publication Chromophobia by David Batchelor. I don’t see colour at the bottom of the institutional pecking order. I see it at the top.
 
I chose to use myself as the model, mainly for ease and reliability rather than some narcissistic desire to look at myself or find myself. However, when scrutinising your own features over and over again, it can’t be helped that it will become self-indulgent and self-obsessed – it comes with the territory. But using myself gave me a grounding theory to base my research on – the theory of looking, looking at one’s self and seeing, seeing in the visual sense and seeing in the psychological sense.

Finally finished these by neatly framing them within their own 'proscenium arch'
This series of self-portrait sculptures investigate the painterly methodologies of the Great Masters. As part of my current MA in Sculptural Practice, I put myself face to face (as did the artist with his sitter or himself) in an attempt to see what they saw - I become an actor, not only playing the part of sitter but also the part of the artist.

The aim is to subvert the traditional idea of bronze monumental portrait sculptures commissioned to confirm status or commemorate heroes. As a former interior decorator and painter, I used colour everyday, and recently have missed the effect colour can have on mood and emotions:

Bringing colour into my latest series of portrait sculptures not only breaths life into an otherwise static form but creates a new energy in me as an artist. Bring on the next phase - sculpting with paint!

These sculptures will be exhibited at Gallery In the Garden Great Sailing, Essex, during the Dame Elizabeth Blackadder RA, RSA, exhibition 8th July-16th August, along with my fellow MA students' work.
Private view Sunday 5th July 2015

The work is now presented as one piece Masquerade (2015)