I had never really put the knowledge I had gained as a student to any specific use as such. Indeed as a professional, independent artist I had never attempted to make any figurative sculpture. Somehow it had become forbidden territory for my generation, with an invisible but unbreakable taboo attached to it. Despite this I felt increasingly drawn to make at least the attempt for better or for worse.

Eventually after much hesitation and doubt, I tentatively made a few figurative images in clay. I didn’t use a life model, but worked from my imagination. It soon became clear that I had stored up more knowledge about the human figure than I would have thought possible. The major task facing me however was whether I would be able to make a viable stone carving of a figurative nature. Mechanical methods of transferring clay models made by individual sculptors into various types of stone by skilled technicians, had been the norm for generations. The results were often cold and lacking in vitality. Indeed inevitably they retained the look of the clay originals, with little or no concessions to stone as a material in its own right. This approach simply would not do.

Throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century a handful of sculptors such as Epstein, Moore and Frank Dobson in this country, and Brancusi, Arp and Wotruba in Europe, had begun a trend towards direct carving. Often with little or no preparation, these sculptures tackled the stone head on, so to speak, allowing the image to evolve directly through their imagination, through their hands and tools. I sought out examples of these sculptors’ work, particularly those using figurative imagery. I quickly became convinced that direct carving was the only viable option for me.

The many years I had already spent cutting and shaping stone to make my abstract constructions had provided me with all the technical knowledge I needed. I was only too aware of the pit-falls associated with figurative imagery such as overt emotionalism, which could lead to sentimentality. Determined to avoid this I kept my figures simple and as stoney as possible. I kept the proportions of my figures quite naturalistic but thickened their bulk and reduced anatomy to a minimum. Above all I wanted to make sculpture which happened to be figurative, not the other way around.

By now I had built up a large stock of stone which included significant blocks of Cararra and Thasos marble, as well as native stones such as Hopton-Wood stone, Purbeck marble and Ancaster limestone. I made small, medium and large figure carvings mostly depicting robustly proportioned female figures, either crouching, sitting or reclining. I soon gained confidence in what I was producing and loved doing it. I began to embrace some of the influences, which had informed my abstract work, such as Aztec, Mayan, and Indian temple carvings. Many of my figures were clearly sensuous, whilst others were openly erotic. I believe that the rigour and discipline of my commitment to abstraction gave my carvings an authority they otherwise may not have had.

It is worth adding that my contemporaries considered my change of direction to be misguided and a bad influence upon students. By this time I was a senior lecturer in the very considerable sculpture department at Canterbury College of Art. Now modestly called the Kent Institute of Art and Design. Most of the full and part-time staff there made abstract steel sculpture.

I gladly took early retirement from teaching in 1989. It was a huge relief to be independent and free to put all my energies into my own work. This was beginning to circulate, particularly through my regular inclusion in The Royal Academy Summer Shows. Dealers and collectors, having seen my work there, began to approach me regularly, which ended up with my selling everything I made, and a waiting list of clients placing private commissions for both indoor and outdoor locations.

The physical act of carving over many years of continuous activity has taken its toll, as it does on most carvers. My hands have become increasingly painful. A point has been reached where it hurts to carve, not a little, but an awful lot. As a consequence I now model my figures in clay. This is a much more benign material, deliciously sensuous to use.

Through a well-built armature and compacted clay of the right consistency, the sculptor can construct figures of infinite flexibility. This is both liberating and a potential trap. The temptation is to send one’s figures spiralling off into all manner of florid, not to say, flashy compositions. With my roots in carving, my aim remains to make sculptures which happen to be figures.

Consequently I keep my sculptures simple and chunky. Naturalistic anatomy is replaced by a kind of geometry made up of mass and contour. I still avoid using a life model, preferring to let the work grow out of my imagination. It has been suggested however that many of my figures contain an echo of my beautiful young wife, Rebecca.'

David Thompson, 2006