Patricia Volk FRSS

As a sculptor I love working with the directness of clay, using all the techniques, coiling and slab building, making one-off pieces, which are fired then finished with acrylic paint. Classical sculpture was always highly coloured but we have this erroneous idea that they were all white and sterile looking.

Having said that, my obsession is catching a very simple form or line, primarily, then enhancing it with colour. Sometimes I use juxtapositions of two forms that I hope suggest contradictions of strength and fragility, stability and precariousness – like the relationships between human beings. But also other opposites, such as rest and activity, that I hope give my work a lively presence and a sense of each one having an individual character. But really all this is open to the eye of the beholder. I never want to be too prescriptive, and in saying this much I’ve probably said too much.