Sculpture Information

As with every artist there is the initial choice, do I carve something that will sell or wait for the rock to ‘speak’? I held off from carving the easier option only to find I had an image in my head the morning I planned to carve. The image was of a cauliflower with a brain within its leaves, half perfect and half eaten away by Cabbage White Caterpillars. On reaching my workshop there was a Cabbage White Caterpillar on a neighbouring soapstone which was a first. Then as I began to carve, there was a news report of a lady in Canberra who had a round worm, from a carpet python, removed surgically from her brain!

​This piece speaks to me about mental health. ‘Mental Illness affects an estimated 950 million people worldwide’ according to the worldwide mental health organization and ‘is the leading cause of disability across all age groups’.

​On looking at the sculpture, most people would believe that the healthy hemisphere of the brain is that of the past state and the degenerative hemisphere is the present. But I have called it Metanoia which in psychology, is the process of experiencing a psychotic “breakdown” and subsequent, positive psychological re-building or “healing”. This is therefore a sculpture of hope. In Christian belief the word Metanoia means a transformative change of mind, especially a spiritual conversion.