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Name: Leon Watts

School: Lytchett Minster School

Town: Poole

County: Dorset

Year: Year 13

Inspiration: I have been drawing and sculpting in my Dad’s jewellery workshop from the age of 4. At the age of 5 I began to sculpt wax, after I'd beg and tell my father that every single sculpture was worth an investment cast. At the same time as jewellery, my Dad was a sculptor in silicone prosthetics and with his passion he taught me to sculpt full scale silicone limbs with the accuracy in detail: every bulging vein, every skin colour variation and every hair is applied. He still does it today and is successfully building his own business. Without this spur of controlled energy by my father, I don’t think I would be interested with art, in the way I am today. Growing up and living in Dorset, there were many opportunities to use local materials like Purbeck stone. I have recently got involved in CNC engineering, as well as creating a passion for all types of welding, Antony Gormley, Pete Burke, Naum Gabo, are some artists that have made a large impact upon the way I think about art. As well as my father, they have given me a refreshed boost throughout all of my projects.

Title: Industrial Encapsulation

Description: I began to research the human figure in sculpture, its history and its significance upon the art world, and it began my abstention to find ways in which artists use the human form to touch subjects from all different sources, Antony Gormley’s work was the main nourishment behind my inspiration to cultivate this form, as well as being influenced by my father's work in prosthetics. I was very much affected by industrial processes during my investigation, and my passion for design engineering eventually linked in conjunction with my research and found me to create a sculpture involving myself as a platform. The sculpture intends not to be bias being male nor female – It can be in your own interpretation, this is something you can relate to whilst putting in terms its purpose. I intend to enlighten the subject on how industrialism is disrupting our chance to progress in a natural evolution. We adapt to the environment with our instinct to survive, but this has accelerated with advances in our want to create “better technology” our own creativity and thinking has compromised aspects in our probability to be a stronger race in a more natural sense.

Medium: Herculite 2 plaster, Copper Mesh, Lead Soldering

Width: 50 Height: 55 Depth: 27

Keywords: Figure, man, copper, face, body, embodiment, Industrial, mass production, evolution, metal, plaster