Essence of the wild- Part 2: Held structures

Project Rhino

Part I of Essence of the Wild explored held attitudes—moments of stillness where presence, tension, and instinct were contained within the body of the animal.

Part II shifts this investigation toward structure. Emerging through the Rhino project, the work becomes more architectural and geometric, moving beyond the surface of the animal to examine what underpins it.

Why the rhino?

The rhino was a different kind of challenge. The horse and the cheetah come with an inherent elegance that moves naturally toward my sculptural language. The rhino resisted me at first. Heavy, prehistoric, almost geological.

My practice is built around the archetype, the single essential form that defines an animal's presence. For the rhino I had to look harder and longer and the more I looked, the more I found myself genuinely excited by what I discovered.

The horn is the rhino's defining form but beyond that I began to see something unexpected. An animal that is essentially architectural. Mass built like a fortress. Planes meeting planes. A geometry unchanged for millions of years.

That is where Citadel began, in the realisation that the rhino is not just an animal but a monument. More animals would fit into this category such as the elephant ….

Citadel - Contemporary rhino sculpture