Martin Cody MRSS
www.martincodysculpture.com
Instagram: martincody1981
I resumed making sculpture in 2014 and was accepted for membership of the Royal Society of Sculptors in 2022.
My sculpture is material and tangible and comes in two flavours.
In one mode, I attempt to elucidate the space or features of the setting occupied by a sculpture and to fulfil this goal I bring in pre-made components or custom made components to the site. I think of these pre-fabricated components as my ‘company of actors’, a notion that points in the direction of sculptural forms as performative. I am attracted to accomplished performance in others and terrified of it for myself, although I like to have a go sometimes. So my sculpture is a kind of performative system whereby materials ‘feel ‘or ‘find’ a way into, through and across the space in an ‘enquiring’ way; unfolding in fits and starts as different materials and ways of constructing come into play, more akin to an event than an object. I prefer the viewer to have a low key entanglement with this event-like condition. I do not aim for immersive, spectacular or monumental impact.
Every now and again, I press the ‘pause button’ on this enquiring movement to solidify a moment of process; to do ‘close work’ with forms and materials. This other signature phase, ‘freezes’ the performative process and I make pieces that are more object-like. These bring the viewer into a different proximity to the form, materials and scale of a sculpture compared to the characteristics outlined above.
Selected biography.
1975 - 76 Foundation Course at Hull Regional College of Art.
1976 - 79 BA (Hons) in Fine Art Sculpture, Liverpool Polytechnic,
College of Art and Design.
1979 - 80 John Moores Fellow in Sculpture, Liverpool Polytechnic,
College of Art and Design.
1984 Qualified as an Art Therapist and subsequently had a career in NHS Adult Mental Health services in London
and Birmingham until 2011.
