Elytra, is a transient collection of variations on a theme. Each piece is a collective group of smaller individual units that are identical in shape but varying in scale, colour, number and arrangement. The inspiration came from an exhibit at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, during my final year at university. Amongst the chaotic assortment of ancient artefacts hang a pair of shrunken heads, war trophies of a remote Amazonian tribe, and these miniature heads are adorned with long, oversized earrings made from hundreds of iridescent beetle wings. For the Amazonian people they were clearly very valuable for their jewel-like qualities and rarity.

While the heads themselves are fascinating, I was dazzled by their earrings; the vibrant colour, the overlapping pattern, the subtle differences in each individual wing and the impact they have collectively. With these ideas in mind I set about investigating the potential for repeating, colouring and arranging a shape, based on a beetle’s wing, into different sculptural forms. Limiting myself in this way has compelled me to push one idea as far as possible, but five years on I am still finding new ways to configure this versatile shape. While its profile remains constant, the curve, colour and arrangement continue to evolve, mutating occasionally like a species of animal over millions of years.

The theme of evolution/change is important. As my work evolves over time through repetition, so does the colour in each piece, graduating slowly but evenly from end to end, or cyclically in neckalces and bracelets that join to form a circle. Where one colour stops and another starts there is no boundary. Discriminating one component from the next is difficult and I find satisfaction in this subtlety.

Since beginning my investigation I have become increasingly interested in the way quantity affects our perception of worth and my work explores the contrast and relationship between the individual and the greater mass.

While there is beauty in individuals there is wealth and beauty found in numbers and therefore scale, and with it a profound sense of overwhelming; a shoal of fish, a flock of birds, an orchestra. Collective groups like these have unity, repetition and rhythm. They co-operate in equilibrium. These qualities can also be observed in their movements that ripple through them in a domino effect known as 'canon'. For example, a mexican wave.

Repeating colour ways exactly is difficult and so each piece is unique. While colour itself is historically a symbol of wealth, the uniqueness adds a sense of rarity to my jewellery and thus value, like the trophy heads in the Pitt Rivers Museum; rare, exotic, treasured specimens collected from a far off land.

I am also inspired by music, dance and art in general, particularly by the work of sculptors Anish Kapoor, Anthony Gormley and Andy Goldsworthy, all famed for their consideration of form, colour, scale, rhythm and place. By manipulating our physical world they pose metaphoric questions about humanity and the human condition. Musician and composer, Nitin Sawhney, is another like minded artist. Through their art and their passion they cross cultural and physical boundaries.