The Edge Series

The Edge Series has been on going for years, decades really, though not always under that title. The sculptures are abstract. Many are very personal but a lot of them are informed by films, books like The Life of Pi, other people’s stories and, of course, music is always in there, especially that of guitar god Steve Vai.

The landscape and our connection to it is often the narrative setting. Although there may be a figurative influence it is a figure from the earth, not us. The relationship in South Wales with the land is literally deep from decades of mining and the Welsh have a beautiful word for their bond to their home-land, ‘Hiraeth’. The wonder and danger of coal has coloured the culture and heritage here for thousands of years and the evidence of that blends in with the natural landscape so ubiquitously that it’s hard to tell them apart.

Along the cliffs of parts of the spectacular coast-line here in Wales you can see seams of black coal in the rock. Geology shaped by water and time is very much part of The Edge narrative.

The mountains of the Brecon Beacons are ancient and worn by the wind and water. The highest, Pen y Fan, has a very figurative form rather like a sphinx that you can see in the Balarat Pit Marker, a Public Sculpture from The Edge Series.

Pen Y Fan by Chris Goddard, Wales.

Balarat Pit Marker , Blaengarw,Wales,6m long.

Balarat Pit Marker, Blaengarw, Wales, 6m L x 2m H.

Balarat was very much about our fraught relationship with oil and coal and the sadness of the Land at the tragedy a gift can cause.

I joke that The Edge is about Death but it’s not actually that clear cut. Boarders, turning points, changes we choose or that creep up on us all have an edge we need to pass. These sculptures are about reaching that point and the many, mixed emotions we get about it. Essentially there are two places shown with a door between them. The emphasis can be on any part.

Forms with holes have always held us.