In early July, Golden Earth Studio welcomed artist Arran Gregory to an unfolding space, a construction site in Wimbledon, for a one-day, in situ residency.

No fixed expectations, no predetermined outcomes. Simply a moment of immersion, an open-ended dialogue between artist and environment, where raw materials and architectural forms became a field for reflection and response.

Set among scaffolding and rising structures, Arran established a temporary studio, allowing instinct and material to guide his process.

In the conversation below, we explore Arran’s evolving relationship with clay, his sculptural language, and what it means to create within the transitory energy of a construction site.

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Introduce yourself and your practice.

My name is Arran Gregory, I am a British- Sri Lankan sculptor. Throughout the past year, I have been travelling across the globe creating ‘Earth Body’ sculptures – a series of meditative explorations into raw earth leading me into various wild habitats, and to live alongside remote indigenous communities.

 Here I have been working directly with and in response to the landscape where I use clay, soil, pigment and various other found natural materials. I see these materials as an extension of the human body, carrying time, memory, ancestral knowledge. 

Through my practice I am responding to the land through the experiential- letting the environment speak through the work as time passes. Nothing is fixed, many pieces are ephemeral, I am learning to let go. 

I’m interested in what happens when we stop trying to control the outcome, when we let the earth shape us as much as we shape it.

What drew you to explore clay in your recent works?

I had spent a month living in a forest in Finland as part of an art residency where I handed my phone in. Having no internet or way to research meant I spent time with my materials and experienced them through trial and error – their properties and behaviours revealing themselves to me through physical exploration and touch.

Clay felt like a natural place to begin- it’s immediate, unprocessed, and already present beneath our feet. I made a decision early on not to source anything manufactured. I didn’t want to impose materials onto the landscape, but to work only with what was already there. I started discovering hyper-local materials which felt so overlooked. 

I feel there’s a quiet beauty in not creating something new, but allowing something to arrive through the act of being present over the course of time. Clay carries that possibility. It’s ancient, alive, and deeply human. In many ways, it’s not about making a sculpture, it’s about entering into a conversation with the land, and letting that guide what takes form. Discovering this has led me to capture my process through film and performance.  

Where do you find inspiration for the forms, colours and textures?

I take inspiration directly from the environment I’m working in. In the city, that’s meant paying close attention to what’s underfoot – red brick dust, yellow road markings, chalk or charcoal washed up by the Thames. I’ve been using these elements to build a kind of grounded, site-specific language.

At the same time, I’ve been developing a burnished chrome surface in response to the industrial, high-gloss edge of the city. I’ve been calling these works ‘Techno clay’. I’m exploring something ancient and something synthetic, a kind of tension between the earth and the built environment, between the raw and manmade. 

Had secondary resources played a role in your work before your collaboration with Golden Earth Studio? Why does engaging with by-products hold significance for you?

I’ve only recently started working with construction clay waste as I’ve been working remotely so far. This has marked my return to the city, where finding truly raw, local clay has proven almost impossible. The Thames clay is heavily contaminated, and much of the land is privately owned, so you can’t just dig into the ground like you can in remote landscapes.

Having worked with wild clays in forests and jungles, I’ve never seen clay as a ‘product’, it’s always been a living, fundamental part of the real world. Thinking of clay as a waste/ byproduct highlights just how disconnected we’ve become from raw materials in the city. The material relationship has been detached from the lands inhabitants and placed solely into the hands of the construction sector. For me, it’s a way back into that material relationship, one that offers a truer understanding of the self. 

Working with what’s been discarded feels important now. We’re in a time where every act of making has to be questioned -not just what we create, but how and why. So much sculpture today is just more ‘stuff’, with a heavy footprint. Using what already exists (even in its leftover or rejected state) is an act of grounding. It’s a way to create with circular awareness, and to return attention to the earth and what truly exists. 

Can you outline what material you are working with from GES and how you transform it in your ceramic practice? What is the material like to work with?

I’ve been working with clay that was excavated during the foundation work for a new building in London. I spent a day on-site with the builders, working directly in response to the environment, forming four pieces. 

I also collected pigments from the site like crushed red brick and rock fragments from the foundations which I’ll be using to burnish and finish the surfaces. These pieces will remain unfired, breathing with the atmosphere, rather than being fixed in a final state.

The clay itself contains fragments from across time. It holds the memory of the city, of machine and human hands. I’m not trying to refine that out, i’m trying to let it speak out through the works. 

Can you give an outline of the in situ residency at Golden Earth Studio? What was the physical setup, and how did working on-site influence your practice?

I was given a site introduction by the manager and the history of the site was shared. I then built a makeshift work table from some breeze blocks and plywood found under tree shade nearby. Working alongside the builders I had some interesting conversations about environmentally sustainable building techniques and materials that I could implement. It seems construction and the sculptural works I am doing are not a million miles apart, we have a lot to learn from one another. It made me realise how closely aligned ethical construction and my practice really are- both involve reshaping earth, reacting to and structuring space, and forming relationships from the earth’s materials. 

How do you see your sculptures integrating into and enhancing everyday living environments?

Because my sculptures are raw and unfired, they remain open and responsive – absorbing humidity, releasing moisture, and shifting subtly with the atmosphere. In German, there’s a term Raumklima, which describes the climate or feeling of a room, a balance of temperature, air, and material that affects how we exist within a space. Clay plays a natural role in this. It’s been shown to help regulate humidity, improve indoor air quality, and reduce pollutants.

I’m interested in how these sculptures can become more than static objects and how they can live within a space, and even support it. Like earthen floors or clay walls, they can be touched, felt, and experienced on a sensory level. I think of them as instruments for the mind’s-touch, a way of reconnecting to our bodies, to matter, and to an instinctive way of being.