Aidan Hicks was born in Penzance in 1966, went on to study architecture and design but returned to his west Cornwall family farm in 1991. Drawing and painting has remained an incessant hobby and a few years ago, wanting three-dimensional expression, he began to experiment with sculpture.
He likes to use all sorts of stone, even concrete, but has found that the richly textured and mineralised granite he sources from his own family farm has a very special appeal. He finds it very satisfying to take rock from earth that has both a personal and long family association and then re-form it into sculpture.
This taking of the stone from the earth also fits with many of his inspirations for his work. He has always been interested in the relationship people have had with stone in their environment, in archaeology and ancient and mediaeval sculpture. The ambiguities introduced to an antique object through weathering, together with the inevitable erosion of original meaning over time, is also something he thinks about when shaping his stones.
