To create this sculpture, I used the facilities at the General Engineering Research Institute in the workshop, with considerable help and advice from the Engineering technicians. I utilised destructive processes such as fumage and bashing, as highlighted in my methodologies.

In creating a sculpture, this was my first time working with metal, and more specifically copper. I chose the material specifically due to its ability to transform, particularly under heat, producing vivid colours and also its malleability, especially in heat form. The copper I worked with was in sheet form and 0.5mm in width, this meant that it was soft enough for me to continuously bash, made more so by the continual heating with a blow torch and quenching.

I first cut into the copper in various triangular shape, using shears, this took a considerable amount of effort and the sheet was very large. The transformation of the copper began with heating using a blow torch. As the copper heated, the colours began to transform into blues, pinks, reds, yellows and oranges. Once the patina effect had taken place, I quenched the copper in a bath of water. This brought the temperature of the copper down significantly while maintaining the increased malleability caused by the heating of the metal. I then reversed the copper to heat the other side to get the full patina affect and once again blanching it. I would tend to average 1 min per side. 

Once the copper had cooled, I began to bash: the increased malleability helped with this, I used a sandbag and heavy metal hammer. I desired a bashed look for my copper in order for the material to give off a liquid like effect, the material no longer metal, but something primordial and in a continual state of flux. When the light reflects off bashed copper, as I experimented with in my first term, its produced a liquid like effect, like that of Robert Fludd’s ‘Primordial Waters’ in Openneheim Utriusque Cosmi (1617) in his illustrative adaptation of alchemical genesis. I found that the material hardens again, even more so than its original state, when bashing: it increases the density of the chemical structure.

After I had heated and bashed all of the sheets, I began connecting the pieces, the original idea was to use copper rivets, first drilling a hole between both sheets and connecting them with a rivet that would then be continuously be base until the base end would dome in a mushroom like shape. This took a lot of force, and even with heating the rivets in a 800 degrees oven to soften, this particular process was not feasible, particularly when working with larger sheets and getting the appropriate angles with a three-dimensional piece as the layers built up.

It was then suggested I should use a rivet popper to connect the pieces. The pressure from inserting the rivet into the popper and the sheet, with continual effort allowed the copper to dome in on itself; connecting the two sheets. The popper meant that I could reach various angles and work while the sculpture was suspended.

Once the structure of the sculpture was complete, I started working on the wire, twisting it in coils and placed sunflower seed at the base. I had planned this design months before, in addition to the copper sheets branching out, I also wanted sunflower seeds, the outward trajectory highlighted by copper wire. The inclusion of sunflower seeds stemmed from the notion of fertilisation, or rebirth that may occur in the aftermath of a supernova, where highly charged particles and newly formed complex atoms escape out into space. They are a symbol of potential for new life and new light.

Highlighting the transformative element of the sculpture and subject matter, I decided to include elements of decay. Copper turns a vibrant turquoise colour called Verdigris when oxidised through processes of decay, this is visible on rooves and statues that have been exposed to decades of weathering. I sped up these processes of entropy, degrading the material using vinegar and salt; producing copper acetate, resulting in the Verdigris pigment. The colour took around 48 hours to fully appear.

I had cut the pieces of scrap copper in various geometric shapes, however, I wanted the pieces to appear organic, therefore, I tried to cut them with pliers. Although they had been heated and quenched previously; increasing the malleability, the bashing process had hardened the copper even more than its initial state. I bashed the copper in order to look cohesive within the sculpture, while producing valleys and channels to catch the vinegar salt mixture, increasing surface area and therefore oxidation. I tried the process of heating and quenching the oxidised copper again, however, the flame turned green in reaction to the copper acetate, removing the Verdigris all together.

I then decided it was best to cut the smaller pieces beforehand and then add the salt and vinegar mixture. The resultant range of colour indicate differing wavelengths, released from the metallicity of supernova, they have become symbolic of elemental production and transformation.

An unexpected result of this process of oxidisation is the salt crystals formed under the base of the plate I did the chemical reaction on. The salt meandered and branched out, a result of the copper acetate solution, it has become a form of at home electrolysis.

This process has become a series of chemical experiments. I have uncovered the nature of he material and embodied the role of the alchemist, experimenting and working reflexively through their findings, as artist Anselm Kiefer (b.1945) describes while producing his own form of electrolysis, he is ‘Accelerating time’: “…This is what the alchemists do, what happens in nature, they accelerate” (00:35:15).

BBC One. (2014) Anselm Kiefer Rembering the Future. Youtube [online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PXZ0NWGBHg&t=2115s [Accessed 2 August 2026]

Kim, M.J. (2025) Anselm Kiefer–Becoming the Sea. Munich: Hermer Publisher.