Rebecca Lisle

Rebecca is based in Bristol and works from her basement studio at home. She makes unique wooden sculptures from household waste & car boot sale finds.

Rebecca has a BSc in Plant Biology & an MA in creative writing.  She has written and published many children's books. 

Due to a change in her circumstances, she has reduced her sculpture work and moved on to working with paper.

Artist Statement:

Sculpture: Recycling brings new life to an abandoned object and allows an unknown element to exist in my sculpture, encouraging inventiveness and it is important to me that the wood I use is salvaged. The starting point of many of my sculptures is broom sticks, bought cheaply as these were originally intended for the Chinese market and found to be too short for Europeans. I am constantly finding new ways of using them – honing them, slicing them and juxtaposing them with angular shapes. I also scavenge for just the right piece of wood in skips or on pavements and I’ve picked up oak floorboards, chair legs, table tops and wine racks, which have all been given a second life in my work.

Plant biology inspires many of the forms and structures of my sculpture, sometimes consciously, but often quite unconsciously. This detailed understanding of the anatomy of plants and flowers and how various elements function and fit together informs my approach to building sculpture. In the making process I find I recognise fresh associations when observing how one element of an object might connect with another and so make decisions about how to proceed. The dynamics of shape, pattern and material together with curiosity about the world around us and finding imaginative connections between these starting points, is the basis of my work.

The procedure is a slow, meditative process. Since the elements determine the finished product, I am often unsure of what the final piece will look like. It is sometimes hidden in the shape of the piece of scrap wood I've found.  

Working with paper is strangely a similar process. I mainly only reuse tissue paper from packaging and from old paper dress patterns, but occasionally I will buy paper.  Layering with tissue allows shapes to appear to float in space, and perspective to alter. The work is a form of meditation,  and so becomes a way of marking time.  Using a hole-punch or cutting by hand creates a minimilst composition, totally abstract.

In the end, I have nothing to say. All I'm trying to produce is a piece of work that someone will lean in closer to, peer at, wonder about, and hopefully find beautiful. 

RL

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