Scott Nicol – Branches and Bones
“My drawings are fluid, created automatically and allowed to evolve organically.  Works executed in graphite and conté crayon are initially amorphous and cloud-like before solidifying into forms more closely resembling branches, bones, or beaks.  Sheets are overlaid one atop another, with beeswax poured on to make the vellum translucent, allowing unforeseen hybrid forms to arise. Images emerge spontaneously, rising to the fore or retreating into a fog of pollen.  In constructing sculptures of beeswax and uncarved wood I reach for a similar sense of emergence. I search the debris piles at the fringes of cleared land for branches whose serpentine lines loosely correspond with the sinuous tracings that I want to make manifest. The wood, once living, shows evidence of its life in the twists and bends that it retains. Implicit in the sculpture is a sense of motion, the animate qualities that are obscured by the slow pace of a tree’s growth. Beeswax broadens the narrow lines of the piece, its translucence drawing in light.”
Scot Nicol