Echokinesis

ECHOKINESIS 2025. Fine, patinated, recycled silver; 22K conflict-free gold; lab micro-gems; waxed cotton; flotsam iron.

Silver detail

Detail showing gold layering and micro-gems on crocheted silver wire with fine silver accents.

A celebration of the unique and unusual ways in which we can consciously interpret and reframe our store of subconscious conditioning.

Echokinesis is the involuntary copying of the movements of others, as an innate drive, as empathy or as a compulsion. It is the imitative learning that is critical to early years development, creating a substrate from which individual interpretation of mimicked movements arises. 

As a teenager, I dipped into Nancy Friday’s book “My Mother, Myself”. I was shocked - without conscious intervention, I would be my Mother, an amazing woman who loved me, yes, but one whose behaviour was shaped by anxiety, depression and addiction. I looked and sounded very much like her and realised with alarm that because I had unwittingly adopted so many of her mannerisms, I was very close to being her. I became acutely aware of my actions and worked to remove these mannerisms from my repertoire. At the time I was angry and fearful, but looking back, I see that this profound process was fundamental to who I became: of course, still a small part My Mother, but the greater part, Myself.

Lower Front View

Left Side View

I found this special piece of rusty metal washed up on Woodside Beach, a beautifully scruffy shoreline on the Isle of Wight looking out to one of the world's most busy shipping lanes and the route to Southampton Port, which is likely why such wonderful flotsam artifacts can be found there. I was captivated by the interesting angle it made with itself, the two enticing holes and the way that the rusting process had sealed gravel into the surface of the metal. The iron bar had made the crushed rock part of its definition of self. These inclusions made me think of the way we pick up features of our personality and behaviour from others and make them our own.

Rear view

I felt drawn to respond to the inclusions and create a piece that was deliberately not them but noted their influence. I wanted to talk about the ways in which we can intentionally respond to our subconscious parental, societal and cultural conditioning. How we can become aware of the way we have unwittingly developed behaviours which, once inspected, we might choose to actively modify. I liked the idea that each time we purposefully become one more step removed from initial influences, the result can be made progressively more beautiful, hence the use of gold and tiny gems in the upper layer.

Echokinesis has prompted some very deep and personal discussions with people for which I am very grateful. This, for me, is the whole point of making art and is profoundly fulfilling because I work on the premise that when sculpture responds to the human condition, a collection of objects interacting with an observer evolves into an artistic collaboration that enhances our collective understanding.