‘I have a sense of constancy in my being, and yet I am always changing – learning, growing, feeling – and I experience the same in all things. It seems to be the way of nature.’
- Tom Hiscocks
Tom Hiscocks spent the first few years of his work life with racehorses – as stable lad; assistant trainer and jockey, working in the UK; Ireland; Australia and the USA. When he chose to concentrate on his art, he attended the Slade Art School summer school (2009) and the Ruskin Art School in Cambridge (2010 – 2013). He graduated from the Ruskin with a first-class degree (BA Fine Art) and as winner of the Supanee Gazeley Fine Art Prize.
He is interested in the parallel experiences of constancy and change. He says ‘I have a sense of constancy in my being, and yet I am always changing – learning, growing, feeling – and I experience the same in all things. It seems to be the way of nature.’
His work is an attempt to reflect this essential nature of things. To create a form that is constant, but which also changes as the viewer engages with it, or as the context of the work changes. Rather as one may feel changed depending on who they are with or where they are.
His process generally starts in the traditional sculpting manner with a series of sketches, or he ustilised cardboard to experiment with different shapes. Following this he sculpts a wax model or makes a metal maquette. At this point, he transfers to the digital practice of using 3D scanners, CAD, laser or waterjet cutting. This provides the elements of each sculpture, before he returns to the traditional fabrication methods to create each sculpture by hand. The materials he works with each provide their own resonances. Working mainly in copper; stainless steel; CORT-TEN steel and acrylic, each has very particular qualities that they bring to his work:
Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in its native metallic form. Copper is the third most recycled metal, after iron and aluminium. It is estimated that 80% of all copper ever mined is still in use today. It has high electrical and thermal conductivity, which makes it very challenging to weld, but the results are spectacular.
Stainless steel is a much more recent invention. Like copper, stainless steel is 100% recyclable. An average stainless-steel object is composed of about 60% recycled material of which approximately 40% originates from end-of-life products, while the remaining 60% comes from manufacturing processes.
Acrylic is recyclable, however, as it’s not bio-degradable the process is not as easy as putting it in your recycle bin or taking it to a bottle bank. But you can re-use acrylic, by cutting larger sheets into small pieces and forming them into other products – and that is what Tom does.
The materials are important to Hiscocks work, as is the physicality of the making process. These are the elements that inform how his work is perceived by people who interact with it. Using contemporary processes to create the work places the work in this time.
Tom’s work appears in a range of private and public collections in the UK, Europe, Saudi Arabia, Australia and America.