Alun Leach - Jones has been making small scale bronze sculpture for the last 18years. As a recognized painter and printmaker Leach - Jones was at first reticent to explore his ideas three dimensionally. Although the sculptor Lenton Parr  first encouraged Leach - Jones to make sculpture in the seventies, it was not until Robert Klippel had cast a Leach - Jones model in bronze that Alun saw the possibilities of working in three dimensions.

I asked Leach -Jones some questions about the sculptures of Melbourne Art Fair 2006.

BB: Alun, the first thing is how. Can you describe briefly how the sculptures are conceived - at least in physical terms?

ALJ: I generally start with small drawings of images that I think I can make into individual wooden components that might then be assembled into fully three dimensional objects. These components are always flat in appearance and are variable in thickness and size.

At this stage I have little idea how these components will fit together, many are discarded in the process of building the sculpture. I make dozens of these small discrete components, all different, but they basically constitute an alphabet of forms from which I can then build the work.

BB: Was your initial reticence about sculpture unfounded or did making sculpture prove to be a struggle?

ALJ: Yes, my doubts about my capability to make three dimensional work have proved to be unfounded. Making a work is physically not all that difficult. Of course conceptually making any work of art is never easy.

BB: In your own mind is there a hierarchy of forms?  Does painting come first? Are your paintings the generator of your sculpture?

ALJ: No, not really. There are many ways of making. For me they are equally valid and interesting and all speak in different and varied ways. Different forms produce different aesthetic outcomes.

BB: Your sculpture is in the main of domestic scale but would you ever consider the commissioning of sculpture at a much larger scale, say to go outdoors?

ALJ: Yes, up to now all my sculptures have been domestic in scale with the exception of a largish bronze work commissioned for the sculpture courtyard at the University of Technology in Sydney. I am currently working on ideas that hopefully will be realized on a much larger scale and certainly are more appropriate for commissions, particularly outdoors.

BB: Are the sculptures in part models - idea models or maquettes?

ALJ: When I first commenced making these three dimensional objects I thought of them as problem solving models for use in understanding spatial
aspects of my painting, somewhat in the manner of Poussin’s models for his paintings. I had always found this helpful and enlightening but did not really consider them anywhere near being serious sculpture. This is no longer the case.

BB: I know that titles are very important to you so I wanted to ask you about the series of sculptures, Small worlds and I and The Observatory I suppose because I want always to get a hand on the significance of abstract forms - in part or whole?

ALJ: Titles are important to me for many and varied reasons. But the titles are the result of finding what the subject or theme might be through the process of making the work. The subject is never predetermined. The group of small works collectively titled ‘ Small worlds and I’ is what I term imaginary ‘self - portraits’, me thinking about small intimate things.
The ongoing series, ‘The Observatory” refers to the ‘Imaginations Chamber’, where things observed, imagined, emotionally engaged with are then recorded in some form or another.

BB: In conclusion, is there sculpture that you might want to mention which is of some influence or interest?

ALJ: There are obviously many sculptors who over a long period of time, I have intensely looked at and thought about. All have influenced my thinking in regard to the making of sculpture - Max Ernst, David Smith, Picasso, Matisse, Philip King, Jacque Lipchitz, Vladimir Tatlin, Alexander Rodchenko, Lazlo Mohology - Nagy. As well as the sculpture of New Guinea.

There was also my personal friendship with Lenton Parr and Robert Klippel. Their encouragement, advice and help certainly contributed to my determination to work and think in three dimensions.

The artist wishes to acknowledge with thanks the assistance of Crawford’s Casting Foundry, Sydney in creating all the bronze sculptures at Melbourne Art Fair, 2006.