Matthew Billington: Contemporary Sculptor, Standing Stone Carver

I was first inspired to carve stone over ten years ago watching someone shaping slate wands and staffs at glastonbury festival. upon finding a piece of mudstone embedded with crystals I set to work with the tools i'd seen in use at the festival. So started my first works, sat in the sitting rooms of large shared houses. With all the comings and goings of the various visitors it became apparent that i was creating something of a sensation with many folk eagerly awaiting the days progress. That first piece is still in my possession as it was broken soon after completion. Completely self-taught until last years letter cutting course I have developed without the hinderance of pre-concieved limitations adapting non-traditional tools to my artwork. A strong celtic theme grew in my work even through the functional pieces such as fireplaces and headstones.

Recent years have seen me producing awe inspiring monoliths that tower over public park lands, often adorned artwork from local school children. This public commission success has allowed me to come full circle back to the sort of work I started with - melting tribal abstracts of figures heads and totems. The accumulated experience and equipment of the intervening years allows me now to sculpt with an instinctive, flow of consciousness, response to the stone. Dancing with the various juxtapositions of hard and soft, sculpted and natural, ancient and contempory. I try to expess myself in a way has a sense of permanancy and timelessness, striving toward a pure expression of imagination made manifest in stone.