Liz Mills
Across my practice, I am interested in the point where intention gives way to emergence. Although many of my works begin with self-imposed systems or visual references, the final outcome is never fully determined. This sculpture distils that process further, relinquishing even the initial framework and allowing the form to develop through an intuitive dialogue with the timber. In seeking moments of mushin (‘no mind’), the work embraces attentive presence over control, allowing material, movement and chance to shape its final form, with the timber becoming an active collaborator.
In this sense, the work draws on Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the fold, where form is not imposed upon matter but emerges through the continuous unfolding of relationships between artist, material and process.
The boundaries between intention and material, maker and object, become fluid, and the finished work is understood not as the execution of a preconceived idea, but as the trace of an unfolding encounter. Meaning therefore residesas much in the process of becoming as in the final form itself.
