Derrick Woodham

"In my sculpture I have always tried to model ideals of form, material, and process.

Euclidean geometry, with it's way of defining shape in fundamentally simple abstract terms, such as point, line, and surface, has been the context of my contemplation of ideals in form. I am impressed at the ease with which a cube or a sphere defines it's shape, each a perfect form, yet ubiquitously available, and each extensively applied for the use of their readily appreciated structural properties, their organisational principles,

Contemporary materials such as aluminum and plastic, and modern commercial processing technology such as extruding and laminating, have inspired my work through the challenges they set me in defining my ideas for sculpture, and in setting the tasks necessary for their production, tasks which must be performed to a level of finish appropriate for the material. Materials prepared using modern industrial processes often exhibit a precision of finish unattainable by hand, and because of this they actively support my persuit of an idealised space or form.

Using computer generated models of my sculpture, and installing them in a multiple user virtual reality environment has brought me closer to my utopian objectives, providing fuller management of the experience of the work, and greatly expanding the potential audience."

Derrick Woodham was born and educated in Great Britain, graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1966. He represented contemporary trends in British sculpture in many group exhibitions which traveled extensively in Britain, Europe, the United States and Japan.

He moved to the United States in 1968, teaching at the University of Cincinnati since 1980, where he is currently a Professor of fine art teaching sculpture and electronic art, and investigating multi user interactive networked virtual environments.

He has been working in Active Worlds since 1995, which he found while searching for venues to present virtual reality models of sculpture on the internet, and has installed models of his own work, and art and design work created by his students and other artists, in DAAP, the first Active Worlds on line educational zone dedicated to sculpture.

Emerging Cube

Rotating Cube

Twister