NATURE & NURTURE

Nature & Nurture begins with a three-dimensional scan of my father’s head. I searched through the fragments of the scan’s digital code to inform the sculpture, allowing the data itself to become a visual language. Through this process, the work moves between biological origin and technological interpretation, exploring how identity is shaped by both what we inherit and the environments we grow up within.

My interest in this became deeply personal after my father recently discovered and connected with members of his biological family. Meeting them has shifted my perception of identity and belonging. As relationships with these relatives have developed, I have begun to recognise certain behaviours mirrored across people who have lived entirely separate lives. These encounters made me aware of how deeply certain traits seem to travel through bloodlines.

At the same time, I can see where nurture has taken different paths. My father grew up in difficult economic circumstances and experienced trauma that often left him abandoned and feeling that he did not belong. Watching him interact with these newly discovered relatives has revealed both striking similarities and subtle differences, moments when shared nature seems to click into place, and others in which life experiences have shaped personalities and outlooks.

Meeting this extended family has also revealed another explanation for why I am creative. It not only travels via my mum's side through flower arranging, baking, poetry, music, painting, and engineering. On my dad’s side, we have a mix of musicians, holistic practitioners, designers, chefs, and entrepreneurs. Seeing this wide network of creative thinking reflected across generations has made me reconsider the source of my impulse to make, and how it floods every part of my existence. While my path as an artist has been shaped by my decisions and tenacity, as well as the support from friends and family, it may also be connected to something inherited, a creative force that appears to run through both family lines.

This experience led me to reflect more deeply on the long-standing debate between nature and nurture, the question of whether human behaviour is shaped primarily by genetics or by life experience. The phrase “nature versus nurture” was first popularised by the nineteenth-century scientist Francis Galton, who believed that many human traits were largely inherited (Galton, 1869). While Galton’s work helped establish early studies of heredity, his legacy is complex. He was also the founder of eugenics, a movement that promoted selective breeding of humans, and for this reason many scholars today approach his ideas critically rather than celebratorily.

Contemporary research increasingly suggests that identity cannot be explained solely by biology. Neuroscientist Michael Meaney has shown that environmental experiences can influence gene expression, demonstrating how early-life conditions shape biological responses (Meaney, 2010). Developmental psychologist David S. Moore further argues that identity emerges from continuous interaction among biological, environmental, and social systems rather than from a fixed genetic blueprint (Moore, 2015). Rather than existing in opposition, nature and nurture continually shape one another.

Alongside these reflections, the process of making the work also became part of the enquiry. As part of my process, I reuse and reinterpret complete pieces, creating a network, or family tree, of artworks. I began by carving the sculpture from recycled polystyrene left over from my residency at the Royal Masonic School for Girls, where I created four monumental sculptures for the school grounds. I work quickly and intuitively, cutting directly into the block. I then coated the structure with plaster, applying layer upon layer of varying consistency. Thicker plaster was used to strengthen the edges and deepen the contours, allowing the surface to accumulate slowly through repetition.

While working in this way I found myself thinking about artists such as Alberto Giacometti, who frequently modelled and reworked his sculptures in plaster before casting them in bronze, continually adjusting the surface until the form felt resolved (Fondation Giacometti, 2023). I was also reminded of Henry Moore, who experimented with carving large-scale forms in polystyrene during the later part of his career as a lightweight method for exploring scale and volume (Henry Moore Foundation, 2022). I normally build my sculptures through clay modelling, but working with polystyrene and plaster introduced a different dialogue with the material. As I worked, I became aware of how much the material itself influences the outcome. The work emerges through a conversation between intention and resistance, in which I continue to adjust until the material no longer asks questions of me.

By translating my father’s physical form into digital code and then into sculptural language, I explore how identity moves across different systems:  biological, technological, and experiential. What begins as a scan becomes an interpretive process, shifting between inherited form and lived experience. In this way, identity is not presented as fixed or singular, but as continually shaped by the environments and relationships that surround us. Nature & Nurture, therefore, becomes both a reflection on lineage and belonging. The sculpture investigates the invisible connections that shape who we are and how we recognise ourselves within a wider network of family and environment.

References

Fondation Giacometti (2023) Alberto Giacometti: Materials and Techniques. Paris: Fondation Giacometti.
Available at: Giacometti Foundation research resources

Galton, F. (1869) Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences. London: Macmillan.
Available at: https://archive.org/details/hereditarygenius00galt

Henry Moore Foundation (2022) Henry Moore: Working Methods and Materials. Hertfordshire: Henry Moore Foundation.
Available at: https://www.henry-moore.org

Meaney, M.J. (2010) ‘Epigenetics and the biological definition of gene × environment interactions’, Child Development, 81(1), pp. 41–79.
Available at: Child Development article (DOI page)

Moore, D.S. (2015) The Developing Genome: An Introduction to Behavioral Epigenetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Available at: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-developing-genome-9780199922347