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I No Longer Know What The Money Is. A group of 9 sculptures and 40 drawings. Exhibited in a solo presentation at Alma Enterprises Gallery; a 4-person exhibition at Simon Oldfield; group exhibitions at The BSR; Accademia Di Romania, Roma; Tempio di Adriano, Roma; Hotel Aemilia, Bologna.

In this body of work, developed whilst Sainsbury Scholar of Sculpture and Drawing at the British School at Rome, and subsequently in the studio in Newcastle, Cuddon explores what parallels can be elucidated between two distinct art-making processes: modelling with clay and pencil drawing, and what this might tell us about the nature of each activity.

In the ceramic work, Cuddon deployed a modelling process where an ‘image’ is formed by working out thin skins of clay into sculptures that reference figurative forms (e.g. a beached seal, a pair of lungs). Intensively worked surfaces speak of process, where the clay is pushed from the ‘inside’ or pummelled back from the outside, achieving what has been described as a skin ‘clotted with the accumulated trace of the artist’s fingers…the pummelling and cajoling of the clay transforms it into a sculptural surface of disclosure.’

The drawings parallel this approach by exploring how an image of an (often indeterminate) physical object can be described by building up heavily worked surfaces composed of superimposed layers of marks and patterns. Emphasis is on creating a material fabric rather than a pictorial view. Treating the materiality of the paper as an integral component suggests an equivalence to the material ‘wholeness’ of the sculpture.

The research was informed by study of Etruscan ceramics and wall drawing, notably drawings of objects and symbolic forms from the tombs at Tarquinia, and hand-modelled terracotta sculptures in the Museo Nazionale Etrusco Roma, where the strong relationship between the pictorial image and making process is evident.

The work was discussed at a public lectures at the British School at Rome, Simon Oldfield Gallery and reviewed in Art Review and Artslant.