Sculpture is not a quick art. Every piece moves through a sequence of decisions, resistances, and discoveries — from first thought to finished surface. This is what that sequence looks like.
Every work begins not with material but with time — hours of looking, sketching, thinking sideways. Paul keeps notebooks of forms, not descriptions. A line or a shadow that keeps returning is usually the beginning of something.
From drawing, he moves to small-scale maquettes in clay or wax. These are not models of the finished work — they are thinking-tools, a way of holding the idea in three dimensions before committing to the material it will ultimately inhabit.
The choice of material is never incidental. Bronze will hold the finest detail but carries associations — permanence, ceremony, history — that become part of the meaning. Stone has its own grain and internal logic that must be respected or fought. Steel is blunt and industrial, and that directness is part of its honesty.
For stone, Paul sources blocks in person where possible, reading the material for faults, veins, and hidden character before committing. The stone already has opinions about what it will become.
The making is where plans dissolve. The material resists, reveals, and redirects. Paul describes this phase as a long negotiation — patient, sometimes frustrating, occasionally exhilarating. The work that emerges is never quite the work that was planned, and that is how it should be.
For bronze, this phase involves modelling in clay, mould-making, and foundry casting — a process that can take weeks. For stone carving, the work is direct and irreversible: every cut a commitment. Steel fabrication falls somewhere between — planned and welded, but always open to revision until the final pass.
The surface of a sculpture is its skin — what the world touches first, and what carries the memory of making. Paul pays meticulous attention to finish: the hand-polished bronze, the raw stone edge left intentionally rough against a worked face, the waxed steel that will change over time.
Patination on bronze can take days of acid work, heat, and chemical application. It is the most painstaking stage of the process, and the most transformative. A bronze with a poor patina is a piece in the wrong skin.
Lost-wax casting allows forms of extraordinary complexity and detail. Paul works with a local Auckland foundry for the pour, but handles all modelling, chasing, and patination in-house. Each bronze is unique — even editions carry individual variation.
Limestone, marble, and basalt sourced from New Zealand and abroad. All stone work is direct-carved — no pointing machine, no enlargement. The form is found in the block, not transferred to it. Each piece is therefore unrepeatable.
Mild steel and corten, cut and welded in the studio. Paul is drawn to steel's industrial associations — it carries the memory of manufacture, of function, of weight. Corten works left outdoors rust to a deep, stable surface. Mild steel is waxed or lacquered.
A partial inventory of the tools that make the work possible.
Paul welcomes studio visits by appointment — for collectors, those considering a commission, or anyone with a serious interest in seeing the work close up and the process in action.
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