Sculpture Selection for Overseas – Florence Expo Metro

Touching the Moon the Selected Sculpture

Uniqueness of Design and Finish of the Bronze Sculpture

This sculpture of House Martins Touching the Moon is patinated coloured bronze with unique additions of fused glass added to the bronze base. This work was jury selected for the London Art Biennale in 2025 and taken by the Gagliardi Gallery. Now it has been selected to be shown in the dramatic Expo Metro in Florence this November.

I am so pleased and excited to take part in this vibrant exhibition of contemporary art, that engages with the use of light and opportunities of the digital age.

Consequently I am looking forward to this story unfolding in more of my artwork and in the poetry and songs I will write that are inspired by life and connections. And to find out more about the birds that fly above the streets of Florence.

The Story – the Inspiration

I am amazed and inspired by the epic journeys that birds and other animals make across the world. House Martins, Swifts and Swallows are three of such species in the UK and Europe. Likewise the Purple Martins of the Americas make their north – south migrations.

Such birds use navigation influences of the Moon and stars and magnetic lines of the earth.

You can find out more about such wonderful bird species and their distribution and needs at Birdlife as well as with the RSPB in the UK and LIPU in Italy .

Creativity and people also travel far and stories too are carried and become part of family history. So while designing and making sculptures of House Martins I was also thinking of the pattern on the plates that came from Asia – the Willow Pattern Plate.

Portrayed on the plate is an ancient love story of a young couple fleeing across a bridge. If you look you can see a pair of birds in flight above them. Icons of friendship and love.

Celebrating Life, Home Families

Such patterns of migration, love and personal human history unfolded in time in the recent centuries as so many families travelled from Europe to North America and beyond. And they were carrying their precious memories and experience of home with them in their treasured blue and white china.

Sculpture Made to Celebrate Life

Such bronze sculptures are lovely ways to celebrate life. The existence of Touching the Moon led to a commission of a similar design of a pair of a different species of bird – the Purple Martin (Progne subis). Commissioned to celebrate a special person in New Mexico.