Born in Surrey in 1945, Nash has lived and worked in Blaenau Ffestiniog, North Wales since 1967. He has created a significant and varied body of work in which the relationship between man and nature is a central theme. His artistic ethos has always been one of direct, physical involvement with his chosen material – wood – and the landscape. Since 1967 his sculpture has formed two distinctive groupings; sculptures which connect with the outside, the landscape of making and placements, and works which are presented inside, within and in relation to, architectural environments.
The inorganic, non-allusive sculptures that Nash makes using unseasoned wood are based on the universal geometry of the cube, the sphere and the pyramid. He uses the directions of mark-making to his favoured forms: vertical for the cube, horizontal for the sphere, and diagonal for the pyramid. Although the innate character of the material is taken into account, and allowed to affect the outcome, he never allows it to dictate the sculpture’s final identity. Nash even uses burners to char the wood, once again transforming the material through blackening.
