Male statue, Brixton railway station in March 2011 01

Kevin Atherton (born 1950) is a International artist from the Isle of Man who holds Irish citizenship, after twenty years of living and working in Ireland he is now based in Hastings on the south coast of England. His practice includes performance, sculpture, film and video, installation and site-specific public art.

Early life and education

Atherton is Manx (mother's maiden name: Clague) born in the

Isle of Man ) , anthem = "O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europe ...

in 1950. Atherton is proud to be Manx but also to hold Irish citizenship. Educated at the Isle of Man College of Art-now University College Isle of Man from 1968 to 1969, and at the Fine Art Department of

Leeds Polytechnic Leeds Beckett University (LBU), formerly known as Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and before that as Leeds Polytechnic, is a public university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It has campuses in the city centre and Headingley. The unive ...

from 1969 to 1972. In 2009 Atherton completed his PhD in the Visual Culture Faculty at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin (NCAD) a chapter of which was published in 2012 by FLOOD (Ire) as the book ''Auto-Interview''. Atherton's mother Elizabeth (née Clague) was a tailor and furrier and his father William a postman. Raised as a Roman Catholic Atherton is an atheist and a socialist.

Career

After living and working in Dublin and in Inistioge in Co Kilkenny Atherton returned to live in the UK in 2020 having originally moved to Dublin with his late wife (married in Worcestershire 1977), the educationalist Vicky Robinson (1950-2005)in 1999. Atherton lived and worked in London from 1975 - 1999, teaching part-time at The Slade School of Fine Art (UCL), the Royal College of Art and Middlesex Polytechnic having first been an invigilator at the

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fir ...

for five years. Most notably he was the Head of Department of Alternative Media at Chelsea College of Art, which later; when it merged with Print Making, then under the leadership of Jeff Edwards, became Combined Media. Arriving in Dublin in 1999 Atherton, as the inaugural Head of the Fine Art Media Department at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), wrote the BA Fine Art Media pathway and the ground-breaking Virtual Realities MA course. He has exhibited and performed throughout the world including at the Museum of Modern Art San Francisco (SFMOMA), The Museum of Modern Art Vienna (MUMOK) and at Tate Britain. His two-screen video installation ''In Two Minds (1978-2014)'' is in the collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art Dublin. Atherton had a one-man show at London's Serpentine Gallery from March to May 1988. In 1992, Atherton's statue ''The Compleat Angler'' was erected on Chocolate Island, in the

River Kennet The Kennet is a tributary of the River Thames in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which � ...

where that river once flowed through the Huntley & Palmers factory in

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

. It is intended to commemorate the people of Reading who worked in the factory. In November 2016, his artwork ''

Platforms Piece ''Platforms Piece'' consists of three bronze sculptures of commuters at Brixton railway station, completed by the British artist Kevin Atherton in 1986. History In 1985 the Public Art Development Trust suggested to British Rail that they comm ...

'', comprising three bronze sculptures of commuters on the platforms of

Brixton railway station Brixton railway station is a commuter railway station in Brixton, South London, UK. It is on the Chatham Main Line, down the line from . Trains are operated by Southeastern. The typical service is one train every 15 minutes in both direction ...

, was given listed status by

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

. It was commissioned by British Rail in 1986, and two of the figures are believed to be the "first public sculptural representations of black British people in the UK".

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Atherton, Keith 1950 births Living people 20th-century British artists 21st-century British artists Male sculptors Manx artists Manx people