At present we have the brilliant Welsh based abstract stone
carver Matthew Billington. Working amidst the historic stones
of Wales he is certainly inspired by the ancient carvers but
also brings fluidity into his abstract heads sculpture
that suggests his figures were frozen 'mid-morph'
in molten stone. Both Easter Island and Dali spring to my
mind when I experience his abstract heads sculpture. The
cool, dark Welsh slate he mostly uses, smoothed like
ice, lends a power to his pieces that is compelling...
and compells you to touch...
Matthew loves sculpting abstract heads and does so without so
much a plan as a 'memory' of the stone person about to be revealed.
As he carves the true personality of the head reveals itself in
stone, reflecting a great deal on how he sees those around him
and indeed himself. Many of matthews heads verge on self portrait
and perhaps this is why he likes them to be abstracts! Coiled
alongside his own character though their are also figures from
the ancient past. Abstract mariners, kings and gods all combine
with the everyman to provide a powerfull common calling to what
it is to be human; part of a race that has, for millenia, conquered
the seas, the forrests, the deserts, the mountains and all that
the Earth and its rocks can throw at us. As indomitable as stone
itself.
