Natural Focusing Apparatus
Natural Focusing Apparatus Wall based Interactive Installation, School of Physics, HH Wills Physics Laboratory, Bristol University 2025
Natural Focusing Apparatus embodies my exploration of caustics - natural singularities of light where rays converge to infinity in illuminated networks.
The central lens was formed through an intuitive process of glassblowing, which I understand as co-creation: I do not impose upon inert matter, but respond to the molten glass as it responds to me. This indeterminate relational process of making is then brought into dialogue with precision. The lens was waterjet-cut to a perfect circle to reinforce its optical identity, and its edges highly polished to reveal its internal structure. It performs its function visibly, as the light-material interaction and resulting projections, are both the meaning and method of the work.
The glass is suspended within stainless steel gyroscopic rings, held away from the wall by a polished brass support and stainless steel backplate. Designed in CAD and machine-fabricated, this juxtaposition highlights the interplay of chaos and order. The rings allow viewers to tilt and reorient the lens, activating caustic projections with sunlight or an adjustable LED.
The apparatus is not separate from what it reveals, but is integral to the phenomena produced and open to rearrangement. An engraved brass element is engraved with the mathematical generating functions that describe the singularities visible on the glass surface and, in certain conditions, on the wall behind. The electrical cable plots an Airy function curve, which describes the diffraction pattern at the edge of a ‘fold’ caustic.
Referencing both historical scientific instruments and contemporary quantum equipment, the work acknowledges the enduring study of caustics, from the first known drawing by Leonardo da Vinci to current astro and quantum physics.
Created in collaboration with Sir Michael Berry, Emeritus Melville Wills Professor of Physics at the University of Bristol, it is permanently display in the HH Wills Physics Laboratory. The work materialises the entanglement of glass and light, intuition and precision, theory and phenomenon, where meaning arises through co-creation between material, light, and viewer.
Natural Focuser: Lens II
Natural Focuser: Lens II Wall based Interactive Installation 2025
Natural Focuser: Lens II is a unique reimagining of Natural Focusing Apparatus, with an original, one of a kind, hand-blown glass lens at its centre.
The central lens was formed through an intuitive process of glassblowing, which I understand as co-creation: I do not impose upon inert matter, but respond to the molten glass as it responds to me. This indeterminate relational process of making is then brought into dialogue with precision. The lens was waterjet-cut to a perfect circle to reinforce its optical identity, and its edges highly polished to reveal its internal structure. It performs its function visibly, as the light-material interaction and resulting projections, are both the meaning and method of the work.
The glass is suspended within stainless steel gyroscopic rings, held away from the wall by a polished brass support and stainless steel backplate. Designed in CAD and machine-fabricated, this juxtaposition highlights the interplay of chaos and order. The rings allow viewers to tilt and reorient the lens, activating caustic projections with sunlight or an adjustable LED.
The apparatus is not separate from what it reveals, but is integral to the phenomena produced and open to rearrangement. An engraved brass element is engraved with the mathematical generating functions that describe the singularities visible on the glass surface and, in certain conditions, on the wall behind. The electrical cable plots an Airy function curve, which describes the diffraction pattern at the edge of a ‘fold’ caustic.
Referencing both historical scientific instruments and contemporary quantum equipment, the work acknowledges the enduring study of caustics, from the first known drawing by Leonardo da Vinci to current astro and quantum physics.
Created in collaboration with Sir Michael Berry, Emeritus Melville Wills Professor of Physics at the University of Bristol. The work materialises the entanglement of glass and light, intuition and precision, theory and phenomenon, where meaning arises through co-creation between material, light, and viewer.
Entangling With Light
‘Entangling With Light’ Installation of Glass and Light, July 2025
This is an immersive installation where a mirrored glass sculpture rotates slowly on a plinth, illuminated by a single LED.
As light passes through and around the glass, caustic patterns are projected into the surrounding space. The viewer’s body becomes a temporary surface for these patterns, inviting active participation and creating a literal entanglement between audience, light, material, space and time.
The work demonstrates how complex, dynamic phenomena can emerge from simple elements - a single sculpture, a single light - highlighting the richness of relational interactions and the beauty of unpredictability.
Waves of Radiance
‘Waves of Radiance’ Royal William Yard, Plymouth October 2024
Three coloured hand blown glass disks rotate slowly in the path of a spotlight, casting shifting patterns of changing coloured light and shadow. Reflected caustics dance across the surrounding walls, while refracted caustics are projected onto the window screen.
Visitors can walk in and around the installation, becoming temporary surfaces for the projections. Their movement and presence actively shape the visual experience, drawing them into the field of interactions and entangling them with light, glass, space and time.
The work highlights how complex, relational phenomena emerge from simple elements - glass disks, light, and human presence - emphasizing participation, embodiment, and the shared creation of experience.
Lucent: A Bit of Light Relief
‘Lucent: A Bit of Light Relief’ Installation of Glass, Light and Sound, March 2024
This immersive installation was a series of suspended hand blown glass spheres, with internal colour-shifting LEDs. The accompanying soundscape consists of sounds made exclusively with the glass spheres in the installation, by knocking, striking or blowing into them.
‘Lucent’ means clear or luminous. Sounding similar to ‘Lucid’ I particularly enjoy the metaphor of light and clarity of thought.
Situated in Arts University Plymouth, visitors happen across the space serendipitously, as they traverse the University, inviting unexpected meditative encounters with light and resonance and transforming a corridor into a site of discovery.
Entangled Light
‘Entangled Light I, II & III’ Exhibited as part of ‘Mirage: Glass in the Fourth Dimension’ London Glassblowing Gallery, London May 2025
A series of sculptural forms capturing the dynamic entanglement between artist, material, light and viewer.
The memory of creation, shaped by breath, gravity, heat and motion, is held in the glass.
Light activates the forms, creating intricate shifting caustics, that dance across surfaces, inside and outside the objects, ever changing with the light.
As viewers encounter these ephemeral illuminations, they become enmeshed in the experience, co-creating the interplay of perception, material, and light.
The caustics act as both analogy and enactment of interconnected networks, highlighting how nothing exists in isolation and revealing the relational, emergent nature of experience.
Naturally Focused
‘Natural Focused’ Interactive Light and Glass 2025
A free-standing exploration of light, glass, and relational making. A polished lens, born from an early waterjet cutting accident, is suspended in gyroscopic brass and steel rings, inviting viewers to tilt and reorient it.
Shifting caustic projections emerge through sunlight or LED, making the interplay of material, light, and participation both the method and meaning of the work. The tripod support, crafted from antique brass and a 3D-printed connecting element, references historical scientific instruments while embracing contemporary design.
Contingency and indeterminacy are embraced as active collaborators: unforeseen material outcomes and constraints shape the work, reflecting the ongoing dialogue between intuition, craft, and technological precision.
By engaging with the piece, viewers co-create ephemeral patterns of light and shadow, experiencing firsthand how meaning arises through encounter, participation, and the dynamic entanglement of matter, light, and perception.