WORKING WITH YOU

The creative process starts with consultation and exploration. I visit a proposed site to get a sense of place and design intention.

Based on complexity of the work, its scale and your budget, an engagement fee, (deposit) is determined before concepts are realised to drawings.

Pencil and paper sketches are later developed into full-scale workshop drawings.

Further consultation and refinement of all aspects of the project can be arranged at our South Melbourne studio at any stage in the process.

I enjoy responding to landscape and architecture, a definite style sometimes elusive, as many aspects of design and art history interest me.

From gateways and entrances to furniture and lighting, all commissions are bespoke and have direct connection to the site for which they are intended.

Drawing is a tool, key to communication of a concept.

It enables me to explore and understand form. Conveying the agreed design before I go into the forge.

Final drawings are available upon request and can be signed and framed or mounted on quality foam core or backing board.

(PIC OF GLADSTONE GATE DRAWING FRAMED)

All my work is crafted using traditional tools and techniques, shaped and curved and then brought together through heat and fire. Cold forging can also be used as appropriate.

Drawing out, bending, tapering, swaging, splitting, upsetting and punching. Physically demanding requiring a lot of sweat and stamina - developing master skills after 30 years of applying the art of blacksmithing.

Some of the blacksmith tools were crafted 130 years ago at the Newport Railway Workshop. Many are made by myself and also for individual works when necessary.

The studio is open to visits to view work at all stages, to offer a deeper understanding of sculpting metal.

At Bent Metal I use the metalworking technique repoussé, shaping malleable metal by hammering from the reverse side to create a design in relief. 

There are no objects, fauna or flora I cannot create using repoussage. 

See the Stag Weathervane or the branches on Ngalamba for just some of the examples of repoussage. 

I do not use laser cutting or industrial machinery to shape the different metals used in my practice.

Firstly, centuries-old hand-forging (hot and cold) explained above is naturally part of my practice. But I also use my hands along with tools to obtain desired shapes I require.

For example, the metal seating in the Spirt of Place rotunda for Elsternwick Park had to be individually hand cut, shaped and curved and then brought together through heat and fire to bring it into the shape I wanted it to be. The weaving of the individual metal strips was all done by hand.

The long steel ribbon-shaped monument sign to sit at the top of the 25th Anniversary Gate for St Kilda Veg Out Community Garden similarly is all hand-made and shaped - no industrial machinery is used to shape the metal into the illusion of a shiny ribbon. See Coming 2025 for images of the gate and the steel-shaped ribbon at top.

It’s a hand intensive process, and mirrors the historic blacksmiths’ skills of old. At Bent Metal we maintain the magic of the ancient art of blacksmithing.

Forged or “wrought” iron can be finished with natural patinas or treated and coated with various high-grade coatings.

Over 30 years plus, I have been curious exploring the innumerable ways to oxidise and play with the patination of all metals. Pushing the boundaries of established processes has allowed me to develop and constantly adapt to and explore the behaviours of stainless steel, copper and brass, and have discovered revelatory painterly effects.

Engineered to Australian standards.

All work is carried out in our South Melbourne forge and studio.

Our team here carries out all installation works.