"Red Line" Outdoor Sculpture

Alistair creates kinetic hanging mobiles and sculptures, predominantly from industrial scrap metals and found objects. He lives and works in Frome, Somerset and is a member of the Owl artist’s collective and gallery. Alistair’s path into Sculpture was unexpected. Whilst living in South Africa and working as a photographer with Getty Images, he bought and renovated an old farm house. To complete the project he envisaged a large Calder-esque mobile for the central living area. Without the budget for a Calder piece, he decided to create his own version. In short, he immediately fell in love with the hands-on and very tactile creative process of shaping, forming, balancing and colourising these kinetic pieces. On reflection now, it seems that this purely analogue process was in some way a much needed antidote to bring balance to the increasing digitalisation inherent in his photography, and most other aspects of our contemporary lifestyles. Drawing inspiration from the natural world – the flutter of leaves, the rhythm of waves – his sculptures respond to the air around them. As they move, they create a gentle, almost meditative calm. Alistair’s curiosity to play with creating new potential for previously discarded and redundant forms, particularly those that exist inside the privacy and rigidity of deep industry, has led to exciting new directions within his work. At a time when we all seem to be awakening to the strength of disconnect that now exists between our consumerist industrial culture, and the natural environment that suffers as a result of it’s ceaseless growth, there is great value in any attempt to nudge us back towards our rebalancing with the natural systems that sustain us.