Marcus Rowlands

CRAFT: CONTEMPORARY WOOD SCULPTURE

REGION: Nottingham, East Midlands

Marcus’ practice has evolved through a sustained exploration of form, space and material transformation. His works recede, punctuate and activate the spaces they inhabit, inviting a slower mode of perception. Geometric and archetypal forms have become portals through which he explores repetition.

The journey into these forms is embodied. Trained in traditional Shiatsu and practicing yoga, Marcus has developed an awareness of movement, energy and touch that feeds directly into the making of this current body of work.

Marcus is combining the digital accuracy of CNC machining with deliberate unpredictability. In an act of transformation and regeneration, Marcus applies coloured stain knowing that the wooden grain will take it from him. Much of this will then be destroyed through repetitive cutting and intentional burning of the surfaces.

His use of charring (Shou Sugi Ban) extends from his earlier design and building practice, where he used the technique to clad crafted buildings.

That experience also continues to inform how he thinks about his work, not simply as an object, but as something that can create, occupy and alter space.

Since graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 1993, Marcus has moved between design, building, sculpture, installation and collaborative practice. Establishing a lasting relationship with material, process and surface. He has been commissioned to make large scale interactive, sonic, light and kinetic works, alongside architectural and cultural commissions.