I went to an event called ‘ART OUT LOUD’ at Chatsworth House a few years ago, and heard a talk by Grayson Perry called ‘Chinese Whisper’. One of the messages I took from the talk was that there are no new ideas in art, just new artistic interpretations of existing ideas – such that over time, there is a kind of Chinese whisper from an origination of an idea to a thing it becomes in any one moment – kind of like an evolution.

Whilst it is highly likely that I have misrepresented what Grayson said (and I apologise if this is the case), it struck me as an interesting idea (particularly when looked at alongside my comments elsewhere on creativity).

Anyway, it became an awareness, and while I hope some of my work could be described as creative, I am sure that it can also be described as a Chinese whisper in relation to works created before mine. (I might think of them as inspiration).

One such is Rodin’s female Torso which is in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge which I used to frequent. Rodin’s work seems to hold a great range of qualities simultaneously. I always find it captivating – it holds a great beauty but it is not erotic; it holds labour alongside elegance; it holds female and the wider human being. It inspired me to see if I could create something that holds its own resonances, so I made my version of Female Torso.