Abstract Forms marks the starting point of my exploration into the expressive possibilities of iron and steel. Working without the constraints of the recognisable human figure, I began to investigate what could be communicated through shape, balance, movement, proportion, and surface alone.
These works developed through a direct physical engagement with the material. Cutting, forming, stretching, shrinking, panel beating, and welding allowed the steel to dictate new possibilities, with each process leaving its own physical trace. I became increasingly interested in the tension between controlled construction and the unpredictable qualities created through making.
As the forms developed, suggestions of movement, gesture, and bodily presence began to emerge. What initially existed as purely abstract shapes began to suggest the human figure without directly representing it. This became an important turning point in my practice: I discovered that a sense of humanity could exist within an abstract form through its posture, weight, balance, and relationship to space.
This gradual transition from abstraction to the figure led directly into Human Forms, where these discoveries could be explored through a more recognisable, but increasingly simplified, human presence. The physical language developed through Abstract Forms - reduction, balance, surface, and material tension — became the foundation for investigating vulnerability, movement, and emotion through the body.
In this way, Abstract Forms represents the beginning of an ongoing investigation into how far form can be reduced while still retaining meaning. What began as an exploration of steel itself gradually became an exploration of the human presence within it, establishing a foundation for the later development of my practice.
Nick Rodgers