Briony is interested in scientific ideas, their meaning in society and how the world works.  This includes subjects such as: the boundaries of self (2 becoming one), genetic inheritance, the scientific process (of analysis), how the sum of the whole can be greater than the parts, quantum theory, nature and the structure of networks, morphic fields (Rupert Scheldrake’s hypothesis), embryonic development, emergent complexity (from nothing to something, simple elements to high complexity), and the elegance of DNA.

Early work was figurative and experimented with the boundaries of self and the loving embrace of two people. Wire and line was first explored with “Thread of Generations”, a piece about genetic inheritance. Briony made the connection at this time between the Carbon atom and the human figure, with each limb of the body representing each bond of the element of Carbon.

Wire was also used to explore the “Platonic solids”  and quantum mechanical shells. She created  a piece as part of her RBS Bursary award. These forms were strongly lit, casting shadows onto a wall which had writings exploring  the ideas of the emergence of life on earth.  Shadows and drawn lines merged.

Briony hopes that her work can be viewed without a scientific background knowledge. That perhaps it can be appreciated at a poetic or emotional level. She see science as a religion of sorts, in that it is based on a set of truths/beliefs.

Making sculpture is an expensive business, but she has had good support from foundries. When she sells work she buys more bronze which amuses her friends who would expect her to buy a new handbag.

Briony has had a couple of sculpture residencies and these where taken while pregnant with her children. 

She very much enjoyed her Brian Mercer Residency in Pietrasanta, Northern Italy. (A Mecca for sculptors.)  She finds that as a sculptor one gets drawn into other disciplines in order to be able to realise work. (Much like the Italian sculptors of old who got into the business of marble mining.) Here she played with hot wax in water and “exploded” the emergent shapes created with a pantograph. This process was useful for her as it allowed her to discover the joys and challenges of “editing” and evolving a larger piece of work from a smaller one.

At her Pangolin London Residency she was working with wire and embryo forms. Shadows played a key part in the work. The viewer is encouraged to explore the shadows cast by the work and then extrapolate back to understand the form that casts them. This has a strong analogy to the scientific observational process where many things cannot be directly observed but have to be inferred by observation of effects on surroundings. Taking this idea further a series of photograms were made from her work.

A particularly fascinating series of exquisite drawings and organic sculptures was created from the embryonic “Carnegie Stages”. Again the theme of emergent complexity was striking in these white bio-resin casts. Briony took us through the stages showing how a primitive line of symmetry evolves into more complex shapes. She showed us 4 “dots” which traverse the outer rim of each side of the embryo to ultimately form the 4 ventricles of the heart!
Her latest work explores molecules using the small human body sculptures culminating in a piece that  recreates the double helix of DNA. A video of this work can be viewed here:

The Q&A session at the end brought up some interesting points. Though Briony feels it is important to be able to use some artistic licence in her work, she has a strong sense of scientific responsibility. Ie. To only make compromises when absolutely necessary. The scientific integrity of her work is very important as she has seen a lot of “bad science” art work.

When asked about how people should feel about her work, she says she would like to draw non-scientific people into the beauty and simplicity of science, and also help the scientific community understand and access (to them the sometimes un-engaging) world of conceptual art.

Last weekend I spent two glorious days portrait painting in acrylics and oils under the wing of Aine Divine in Edinburgh at the Blue Mountain studio.

​You can see the evolution of my painting below. This was a large painting of about 1m wide x 1.5m high, a lot larger than I normally work so was quite a challenge. A larger version of it can be found here in my portrait gallery.

Aine was a brilliant tutor and provided detailed demonstrations and lots of personal feedback and gentle coaching & encouragement. Her love of painting and portraiture really shows.

I first came across Aine when seeing her working on the Sky Portrait Artist of the year. She made it to the final and I was so disappointed she didn't take the crown that year as unlike many of the finalists she worked directly from the sitter rather than using an iPad or photo based "grid" approach. I found her work to be much more sensitive and "felt" as a result.

A very small sample of Aine's thoughts on painting:

• Start drawing in the air with big expansive gestures.
• Keep your body moving, and keep aware of shoulder tensions & breath.
• Paint with a rag and/or large brushes creating an inspiring surface to work over.
• Squint to see main form darks/lights, establish these in the acrylic layer.
• Experiment. If you know what's going to happen with your painting why bother?
• Step back often & look for relationships between distant points on the canvas.
• ​All marks should be based on looking at the sitter.​

There was a good mix of talent and approaches and it was great to see how other students worked with the same sitter.

It has not been an easy journey and the ever present pressure to make money to fund his quest is clearly a challenge for him. He is also very aware of time, the fact that he is getting older.

"Maybe when I am dead I will make money from my sculpture, or my children at least will."
Sam explained how he got interested in art as a subject. For him it was “an easy way to get out of education”. He studied classical sculpture for 4 years and suggested that “to break the rules you first have to learn the rules”.

Sam says has never been interested in going to art galleries or being part of the art world.
He spent all his money on making his sculptures. He worked out early on that he’d have to make money on other things to make his sculptures. Self-funding his quest to explore sculpture.

The Egyptians view was that “Sculpture was just for Gods”. That sculpture was “The soul of culture”. Sam loves the fact that sculpture stays. It lasts. Paintings may turn to dust, but strong physical sculpture lasts and lasts. It has a kind of permanence.
The Romans introduced emotion into sculpture and the idea of body language to express emotions.

Sam’s current view is that of one of his teachers. That
“Sculpture is a vessel for the ideas of the sculptor”.

Sam is above all a figurative artist. It is the human that intrigues him. When he started working in sculpture Henry Moore & Michelangelo were a big influence and he was very conscious that he could: “Never be better than Moore or Michelangelo”.

He likes the idea of “making a memory of a person that lives forever”.
He feels that the world is a complicated place, too complicated, and that we need sculpture to simplify our understanding of the world.

Regarding his sculptural language: He does not believe in rules. He likes the idea of purposeful creation. There must be meaning in the work, and he likes to “put every emotion into the vessel”. He wants his sculpture to “touch you in a meaningful way”. He uses colour to express the emotion of the subject. All colours are very carefully selected and rendered onto the work.
He does not follow the contemporary art scene as it stops him from making his own work. Time seems very precious to Sam.

In 2013 he won the Royal British Society of Sculptors award.

Sam gave us a tour of his work with slides.
“The bow”.
“Mother and child”.
“The wedding dress”
“Evolution”
The work made with pipes was inspired after a project to build an exhaust for his motorbike. He asked the exhaust making company if they could make pipes in any shape. They said “of course”. And so began a relationship where he spent a lot of money making pipe sculptures with them!

He says all his work is simply fed from being aware of his surroundings:
“It’s enough to open my eyes every day”

He wants his work to reflect the time we live in. He described how one piece was inspired by a mother and child in the playground, the child wearing a Spiderman costume. The blue and the red colours of the child in the work are that Spiderman costume.
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He said he wants people to touch his work. (But not to climb on it. LOLs.)
Sam said “He could be a God by creating his own vessels”. That he explores “The beauty in our sorrows”. “A sculptor is a creator, God-like”. He enjoys the creation and freedom to create anything.

So:  “Sculptor” = “Creator”.

If we look into the metal folds of some of his work we see faces, but he has not put them there. He explores the idea that we see what we want to see, and it often takes human form.
Sam was the only boy in the family. He has 8 sisters so he feels a special empathy with women. His work “expresses the female”. He’s a people person...“It’s all figurative”.
“Sculpture should capture something important that needs to be remembered.”

He says that life can be seen like a video rolling, where every frame is a potential sculpture.
Sam said he makes sculpture every day and it takes 2-3 weeks to finish a piece. He wishes to create work that touches someone else. Moreover he wants to appeal to the general public. He does not want to speak to a minority group. He wants his work to be remembered by many people.

“The general public is what counts, you’ll be forgotten otherwise”.

All his work is inspired by nature, the living. Sculpture is free and you have to believe in your work. “It’s not about how confident you are, you do have to have some doubt. The work must have some meaning to you. In the end the work is about YOU and YOU ONLY and you have to be doing it for the right reason”. That reason, for Sam, can’t just be for the LOVE of it. “Without a reason the vessel is empty”. Also your motivation has to be true. It cannot be about selling. It is difficult to sell work and if you make work with the intent of selling it’s not the right reason. You need to clear your head of “material” thoughts, “doing work to sell means the end”.
On the subject of making money he says it is tempting to become a professor. But if you do that you may not make art yourself! You need to express things in YOUR life and remember the moment of inspiration. He has funded his own work through his pencil... doing design work, for example for video games companies.

Sam sees his sculptures as his babies and finds it very hard to part with them, even for a high price. He loves to have them around him. Even if they are covered up, they are still “there”.  He feels that making art is the strongest gift man can have.

He talked about his recent work as a painter. The transition from sculptor to painter is a rare one. Usually it’s the other way around as in his view sculpture is the destination and once there it is hard to “go back” to painting. But he is exploring painting and they are works informed by his sculpture.

Interestingly, with his sculpture, he never works from nude models. He puts this down to the country in which he was born and raised [Egypt] where nude models were not allowed. So he always had to do without models and look to the people around him and in his life.
He said that true art is driven by emotions. That his sculptures are never really finished [to perfection] and in that sense he is a “Try-er” not a “Sculptor”.

The best advice he can give is to do more drawing and practice. “It’s all about the drawing”. He has many notebooks with ideas which he draws and explores. He has many many ideas. The important ones “stick” and usually result in a sculpture. He sketches every day and says “You should draw as much as possible.” When he is ready to make a sculpture, he sees it in his head fully formed, perhaps without the colours, but the work is completed in his head before he starts it. Sometimes it takes a long time between conception and build.  So for example he conceived one sculpture in 2001 but did not make it until 2008 due to funds.
He likes to go and visit the sculptures that he has sold to collectors. “I made them, they are my babies”.

He said that sculpture cannot be stored away, stacked, like paintings, you HAVE to [are forced to] live with them.

More recently he is moving back to carving work rather than making it with pipes etc. He suggests using the most basic of materials for this process. For example he currently uses a lot of gaffer tape and other builders materials, like roof resin, which he buys in large tins. Simple cheap materials.
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In conclusion, Sam was a very genial and generous man and it was a pleasure and a privilege to hear him talk about his work and life experiences so openly. I resonated with much of what he had to say, especially his emphasis on drawing.