My statement why and how I sculpt
My interest in carving figures in marble was aroused on my first visit to Greece, admiring the ancient statues. To look at these sculptures in the bright splendor of the nearby Mediterranean Sea, left an indelible impression on me.
I want to know how the Greek sculptor worked and how can we today after 2500 years, find out. Ancient writers tell us nothing. What sculptors themselves, such as the great Polykleitos in the 5th century B.C. wrote, has unfortunately been lost. But the works themselves remain the chief source, above all those in which traces of the chisel are still visible and have not been eliminated during the process of smoothing the surface.
I have adopted this method of stone carving from that of the early Greek sculptors. My predominant tool is the punch and mallet. In the later stages I use the claw chisel extensively. The flat chisel is only used for outlining sharp edges. I merely smooth over the fine point or claw chiseled surface with successively coarse, medium and fine grained river pebbles. There is a sense of well-being when I strike the stone with mallet and chisel, feeling the blood rushing into my arm. For that reason I did not make use of mechanical tools.
I prefer to work with the female figure, the rhythm of the negative spaces is more flowing and less structured. From the initial outlining of the rough figure to the final stages of smoothing the stone, the sculpture is treated as a whole. I work by constantly moving around the stone. One part is never completely finished. The entire sculpture evolves as one entity. To bring the stone to life, I alternate light and shadow through an uninterrupted rhythm of negative spaces. As a result the truth of the carved figure unfolds from inside to outside, as life itself.
The torso form allows me to concentrate all the plastic energy in the trunk of the human body without weakening the plastic volume by protruding limbs. The simplicity of the form increases it's sculptural strength and the tectonic organization of the form reveals itself more clearly. The torso permits a greater perfection of the stone in the sense of plastic compactness and clarity of form structure. In this the silhouette plays a crucial criterion for the constructive tectonic representation of the body. In my search of perfection of form I do not want to sacrifice entirely the spiritual expression I am looking for in a sculpture. For this reason I like to include the head in my torsos, but a view-less head without eye contact with the viewer, to let the sculpture in this way concentrate in itself and against the surrounding space. Parts of the figure will be left unfinished, or a limb still imprisoned in the marble block.
"No good sculptor can model a human figure without dwelling on the mystery of life; All the best work of any artist must be bathed, so to speak, in mystery...Life is everywhere, but rarely indeed does it come to complete expression or the individual to perfect freedom".