Viv Astling

I have been carving stone for over 30 years based in Birmingham and the Black Country – my studio is in Dudley with the stone store of the Shapeshifters Sculpture Group. I was elected a Member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 2012.

There are three main inspirations for the work I make: natural forms, waves and devising abstract narrative forms. My early work was predominantly natural forms with leaves, fruits and seeds. The second area of interest was the contradiction of carving a wave in stone. Influenced by Hokusai’s Woodcuts, I am currently making a series of sculptures in different English stones of his Kanagawa Wave woodcut. Finally, I have been developing a body of work that is more abstract but has an underlying narrative. The largest work to date is Goldberg Variations, based on the piano work by Bach. This work reflects the number of variations, their rhythmic character as well as musical symbols. ​

I was appointed an OBE for services to the West Midlands community in 2005 and have been an Arts Champion for the West Midlands region.