Nicola Burrell

www.nicolaburrell.co.uk
Instagram: @nicola.burrell

I have always made sculptures and reliefs and for the last ten years I have been developing a series of sculptures in concrete and steel which have been inspired by the forms of the urban landscape.  My sculptures begin with an observation of a place and a subject. I work in an intuitive way, usually aiming for the work to be contextual in a double sense; relating to their setting in both a visual and thematic way, creating the fullest resonance with a place.

I have found ways of making highly coloured and precise concrete. Sometimes the sculptures are more pictorial, and sometimes more abstract. Often they owe something to a more collage like method of composition, even when realised in a solid and monolithic form. The more abstracted ones owe something to architectural composition in that they are clearly formed from an assembly of separate elements.

Being hands-on with my materials is part of how I think. For me this is part of the life and vitality of the work. On the one hand I want to capture a sense of life in forms and places, and I want to create work where the gestures of its making are present in the finished piece.