Mark Reed

I love to work in the medium of metals for their gravity and endurance, my quest is to morph this inert, cold medium into natural forms, that both feel and respect the echo of nature and exude a tactile epoch of time. I find when shaping the medium, it is often transformed from the original concept into something quite different- a process reminiscent of nature adapting and evolving to achieve form and function. I love to explore themes of nature and science (as both benign and threatening forces), my place within them and the passage of time.

Metal lends itself to emulate the structural form that Nature took millennia to perfect from a leaf, fish, or tree.

Intangible connections intrigue me, particularly in how an entity exists as a component in a hierarchy of collectives as evidenced in Wave, a 10-metre wave of 3,000 fish which at first glance is an installation of great beauty, but litter can be seen scattered among the fish - a stark reminder of the damage currently being done to our planet. The work, for Norwich Cathedral and the Natural History Museum was a meditation of life on earth, from its origins in the very distant past to our own day, and a reminder of the total dependence all life on this planet has on the generative powers of water and an admonition to heed the warnings of nature. Salvation is a fragmented teardrop representing pain but also water which gives rise to life and growth.