“Shellshock”
The piece has the evenly balanced and proportioned circle/cylinder as its dominant shape, this is also the shape of a shell casing; the upright circle depicting the self and the mental barriers that we put up to defend ourselves from harm, together with the innocence that we start out in life with, the differing finishes depict the individual strands within the whole.
The inset and cut away circles depict good experiences which affect us in a positive way, and we move on with our walls still intact. The size and shape of these events depict the amount of time and impact that they have upon us.
The spiky, rough textured unbalanced pieces depict harmful experiences that remove some of our self and defences, changing our overall self, leaving us marked, scarred and altered, potentially forever. This is described visually by the distortion of the upright in both shape and colour.
The re-forming of the piece to almost its original profile after these events depict healing, after time, after trauma, although some of these profiles are never repaired or healed.
I have made the piece from forged and formed mild steel. The temper colours given during the heating process and distressed gilding are used to describe the amount of stresses undergone during the experiences endured during life during warfare, by combatants and civilians alike. The work has been inspired by my experiences as a former soldier in the British Army, dealing with conflict, and the aftermath of conflict.
