Alex Craig

Born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England in 1978.

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After finishing my Access to Art & Design course at Leeds College of Art, I moved to London where I studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins.

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Since 2013, my aesthetic value has taken its shape in the forms of multimedia installations, performances, abstract drawing and abstract clay sculptures.

 

My current practice relies heavily on automatic visual translation techniques, either through drawing or moulding clay. The significance of tactility and intimacy are crucial in excavating visual forms from my unconscious. Simplicity of process is key, as keeping things stripped-down and bare, for me, brings me as close to producing as honest and natural work from myself as I can. Oneness with nature is how I return to breathing in life properly, renewing my core, replenishing myself to combat the incessant demands from the world in which I live, which consistently drains and sullies.

 

The clay pieces are never fired. They are coated with liquified tree resin to let them dry more naturally, preserving as much of the wet clay look and leaving the material as close to its original state as possible. This way, I can engineer cracks to happen in the dried clay, which become imperative parts of the sculpture.

 

My prevailing technique for extracting sculptural structures is a ritualistic performance under blindfold, removing visual sight so as to not distract me from connecting to a deeper level of consciousness from where I can retrieve my most rewarding work.

 

When I put on my blindfold and get to work, I enter a meditative state and my mind becomes highly focussed. I feel a great sense of calmness and excitement when connecting with either myself, other people or music then kneading and shaping the soft, wet clay. The therapeutic qualities of the medium and its capacity as a learning material for children during play have become key. Through these private engagements, I have been exploring sensuality, intimate connections, fragility, love, control, perfection, decay, trauma, grief, the spectrum of mental health, therapeutic practices, my own peculiar sense of what I find beautiful.

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After the blindfold is removed, I only develop the form slightly, nurturing it and caring for it throughout its life. They are born into my hands when the clay is soft and surrounded by water. Conceptually and physically, their character develops as time goes on, with their interaction with their parent. As they lose more and more moisture, there is a need for them to be nurtured. I gently influence their progression through life with my caring touch and their original form changes very little. Like human beings, they mature into their adult form and become more sophisticated as they age. I intuitively know when the right time has come to stop nurturing them. Inevitably, they lose moisture, shrink a little and grow old. This is when I coat them in liquefied tree resin to stop them ageing too fast, fracturing and falling apart. Their skin loses some of its original colour, cracks slightly and becomes lighter, as they eventually become void of moisture. It is then that their journey comes to an end and they are fossilised, preserved, delicate and vulnerable. Their fissures are signs they've had a life and experienced hardship, as well as love and care. The clay I dig up, water and resin all come from the earth and my hands are my only tools.

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In 2019, the focus of my work became more socially-engaged and I progressed from using a blindfold to working at a custom-made, two-tiered table. I designed and made this from sections of oak, sycamore, pear and conifer, so one or two people can sit and make sculptures without being able to see what they're making.

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It is my belief that relational practices – encouraging viewer participation through social engagement – are the most unequivocal ways of communicating and reaching out to people in an artistic context. 

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I want to achieve simplicity and be easily understood by as many people as possible: to make accessible art for, and with, people through sculpture and social engagement; by connecting, conversing and getting creative with other humans, in-person.

 

The emotional content or meaningful significance of my pieces are understood in the weeks and months after their conception, when my conscious mind comes to understand why I made what I made. Psychoanalysis and intuition play a big part in this self-discovery.

 

My aim is to establish connections then make tactile, non-utilitarian sculptures that are ‘disobedient’ when it comes to classification or gender. I want people to experience my work as intimately as possible. I believe this can be achieved best by touch, as I am compelled to touch sculptures when I see them because I can interact with them, thus giving me a much better feel and understanding of them. The eventual tactility of the dried sculpture, and further viewer participation in physically interacting with it, is very important to me and completes the cycle of collaboration with other people.

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My sculptures are tangible vessels for the emotional attachments and experiences I've had with people. The process is of primary importance and more the art than the physical remains, which are visually pleasing bi-products of the process. They are physical, palpable remains of the emotional experiences I’ve had in the company of others.  I enrich my emotional and psychological state by surrounding myself with meaningful experiences and objects. They are experiential reminders and receptacles of memories, people and experiences - ones which can be revisited by touch and sight – and I refer to these containers of shared experiences as memory vessels.

 

My practice could be defined simply as automatism as performance through sculpture.

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