Marina Nimmo: ArtistArtist StatementMarina NIMMO lives and works in France.The ability to naturally migrate between the disciplines of sculpture, painting, printmaking and installation to playfully engage the audience has been carefully honed over the last 20 years as a teacher of Art and responding to the curious minds and ideas of young artists. GraduatIng with an MA in Fine Art from CHELSEA COLLEGE OF ARTS, University of Arts London in 2017 was the pivotal moment to leave teaching and pursue her own work full-time. Living permanently in rural France there is a significant shift in influences from the constrained routines of city life that fall away to reveal the flow of the seasons and connect to the natural world through careful observations of flux, cycles and perpetual motion.“My sculptures embody the changing cycles of our existence. The ebb and flow of the seasons, rivers and tides that forcefully sweep through our surroundings play a key role in the development of ideas to inspire my sculpture.The significance of the relationship between our fragile natural world and the physical experience of using the earth itself to create highly delicate forms allow my ideas to evolve into sensual shapes that acknowledge the technical prowess of listening to the material to produce fragile ceramic forms that reflect the need to respect the alarming changes within the environment.The sculptures are all hand-built using thick coils of clay; initially appearing quite heavy and crude until they are leather dry - and that is when the hours of refining begin. Hours of manipulating and pushing the material to its absolute limits to gain the right amount of fragility to captivate the audience.”