Nigel Williams

I create unique whimsical sculptures, mostly from brass & copper, and usually incorporating ‘found’ objects which have already had a ‘quality’ life elsewhere. My inspiration comes from Heath-Robinson, Rowland Emett, Keith Newstead, and all sorts of other people and situations, but I am driven mostly by a desire to draw attention to the loss of the ability to design and manufacture quality goods from a country which used to be the centre of the industrial universe.

I always try and make people laugh - my work is usually intended to be humorous, with each piece often being associated with a complex fantastical story describing its fictitious origin or ‘purpose’ (although there isn’t always a purpose!), usually (but not always) developed before I start work on the piece. I am content when somebody walks away with a smile on their face after seeing a piece of my work.

Another entirely different aspect of my work arises from years of photographing "developed surfaces" (i.e. artifacts that started life with plain surfaces, but over the years "developed" into something much more interesting), where the next logical step seemed to be to mount their images in "frames" which exhibited similar surface characteristics.
I started this concept about 15 years ago, and have added more work at intervals since then.
The latest tranche of eleven pieces have been entitled "Organic Inorganic". They consist of manipulated original photographic images printed directly onto aluminium dibond, mounted in custom "sympathetic" detailed frame structures, constructed from oxidised steel.