Due to the cost of new copper sheet I have been using scrap metal to make my most recent works. I obtain old copper tanks or boilers and cut them into suitable sizes with an angle grinder. They are hammered flat over a series of different textured surfaces that I find around me.

I spend a lot of time drawing in pencil and charcoal in a variety of locations in and around the West Midlands and feel that the images I produce are very important staring points for a finished work. However, before using any drawings I rub wax pastels over the plates and run them through a press with proofing paper thus producing a primary impression or image which forms, with the drawings, the ideas for a finished design. The nature of the etching process enables opportunity at times for random accidental or unexpected textures and images to combine with and change the original to produce a finished work. This is also a very important part of the process for me as I passionately feel that in all my work the images were really there all the time, I just uncover them.

I have for several years in my ceramics and glass work been pursuing elements of the human body most recently researching cells and internal organs vastly magnified as starting points for large scale ceramic pieces. I will spend my time at the University combining this research with industrial images taken from local factories and foundries to produce a new series of hybridised images concerned with our relationship as human beings with the industrial environment and machines we have created.