Aidan Hicks was born in Penzance in 1966. He studied architecture and design before returning to his family’s farm in 1991, where he still works. Drawing and painting were a constant alongside farming; more recently he turned to sculpture.

He has carved Cornish serpentine, the metamorphosed stones scattered through the south-west granites, and even concrete, but his current work uses granite from his family’s own land. Taking stone from ground with such a long personal and family association, and re-forming it, is central to what he does.

That act of drawing stone from the earth runs through his wider interests: archaeology, ancient sculpture, and the relationship people have long had with the stone around them. Why a menhir stands where it does, or a field hedge follows the line it does, we can no longer know. Even with medieval carving, the original meaning is partly lost, while time and weather have layered on meanings of their own. Hicks carries these questions into each piece, hoping the finished work might look as though it came out of the ground just as it is.

Having always lived in Cornwall, Hicks is sceptical of the mystical and Celtic associations so often attached to work made here. If a piece suggests either, he would rather the viewer find it than he claim it – which is why his titles are plain and factual: a material and a number.

Studio: Penzance, Cornwall