Richard Paton

Invisible forces: they push us, they pull us, some we know about, most go unnoticed. As we make our best attempts to steer a steady course through life we are frequently buffeted by forces beyond our control. Time goes forwards, backwards, sometimes it stops still, perhaps it doesn’t even exist, light sheds light when we aren’t in the dark. Cosmic radiation streams through the empty space of our bodies, the earth’s magnetic field does it’s best to defend us from the sun’s blast. Incremental gaseous imbalances threaten the future of our ephemeral consciousness. The imperceptible spin of the earth hangs onto itself by gravity, it will exist long after our brief glimpse of it. As pressure from above makes the wind blow to the edges of a compass, I do my best to navigate the flux. I breath, I think, I make.

Richard Paton's sculptures use magnets as a metaphorical device to talk about the invisible force of a magnetic field and how this is integrated into our daily lives. From Geomagnetism to Magneto-reception, from the quantum scale to the universal, he explores science to invoke kinetic tension whilst talking about the grand narratives of existence. Concern for the environment and ecosystems have been long running themes. You can discover more about his practise at www.richardpaton.com. Read more