Natural echoes: Kerry Rodgers notes how Tim Holman finds a muse in plant forms.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

I FIRST STUMBLED OVER the sublime terracotta art of Tim Holman at the 2005 Ellerslie Flower Show. The forms were different. They caught the eye. Each piece was an individual statement, a one-off, with an inter-play of curves that echoed easily-recognised natural shapes.

Holman's New Zealand home base is located a couple of kilometres north of Coromandel in the tiny settlement of Driving Creek. His studio is tucked behind the local cafe.

He is a Londoner born and bred, trained in design and model making. He came accross the Driving Creek ceramic community while touring down under in 2002. An 'inmate' asked him to share studio costs. A compromise found him with a studio, a bin full of clay and time to play.

He has no formal training in art - although his British schooling bequeathed him an O-level in pottery. He has, however, a considerable knowledge of materials and processes. He combines hand-dug Coromandel clay with washed river sand to obtain his raw medium which he employs to create not so much pots, as elegant sculptures in the round. When the master potter of Driving Creek, Barry Brickell, saw the initial results he was sufficiently impressed to offer Holman his own studio.

Holman's inspiration comes from the dynamic structures of nature. The identical efficient shapes that echo through the plant, fungus and animal kingdoms have convinced him of nature's perfection: "Evolutionary engineering cannot be beaten." He deconstructs each new form he encounters and uses its manifold shapes in his craft, not simply replicating them but developing original interpretations. A Poor Knight's Lily seed capsule inspired one terracotta study and was later incorporated in All The Same, his favourite work.

Clay is Holman's preferred medium but he has no claims to be a potter. He can't throw on the wheel and he doesn't make domestic ware: "I believe I am the only completely untrained potter to be offered studio space at Driving Creek. That is why I prefer to call myself a sculptor . my training in ceramics has come largely via osmosis." And he is at pains to contrast the difference between designing and sculpting: "Designing has a purpose or goal whereas sculpting is more about the process than the result."

For Holman his moment of truth comes when he proves the quality of his craftsmanship by the fundamental element of fire. He devotes an entire day to feeding waste pine from a local mill into one of the potter's kilns that flanks Barry Brickell's nearby narrow-gauge railway. He delights in the tantalising glimpses he catches of his glowing works through kiln spy holes: "Seeing a piece glowing at more than 1100[degrees]C provides a dramatic contrast to the passive cool damp plastic clay ... I enjoy worshipping the inferno, willing it to do its alchemy."

Always he emphasises that his, "creative indulgences should burden the planet as little as possible". He deliberately uses scrap wood and waste oil for each firing, not fossil fuels or electricity. If Holman has judged the firing aright, he will find on cracking the kiln that the temperature gradient and atmosphere within have licked life into his pieces: "I hope to see a livid blush or metallic highlights on sound pieces."

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

But even now he considers his works sterile and unfinished. They will only become whole when they have reconnected with the environment from which they were won. Each must accumulate moss, liverworts, lichens and ferns upon its surface that can evolve throughout the life of the piece, such that it not only echoes but again becomes one with nature - an integral part of the garden in which it resides.

Some of Holman's pieces interact with water, others with light. A candle placed within a tall, voluptuous plant shape can transform it to a hovering luminous entity at night. The visual impact at dusk can be surprising or even shocking to the unaware.

Already Holman's creations are making waves in the New Zealand sculpture scene. Other II gained a Merit Award in Waiheke Ceramics 05 as did Happy To Be Here at the 2006 Waiclay National Ceramics Exhibition. A group of six submitted to Art Out There 05 saw him invited to re-exhibit in 2006.

Tim Holman is enjoying learning more of carnivorous plants and is busy developing ways of creating forms using the technology of the ancients. He will visit England over the next southern winter but intends to be back in New Zealand in the summer to participate anew at Ellerslie International Flower Show and intends to co-host a workshop at Waikato Home and Garden Show.

Kerry Rodgers notes how Tim Holman finds a muse in plant forms

Dr Kerry Rodgers is a writer on the arts from Mt Eden, NZ. The Ellerslie Flower Show features Tim's art on its Winter Garden Art web site http:// www.garden-nz.co.nz/article/archive/1014/and he contributed to the Great Coromandel Arts Tour in May 2006 http://www.coromandelartstour.org.nz/ Artists.htm. His own website is www.timholman.com.