Rick Kirby

Rick Kirby (born 1952) is an English sculptor born in Gillingham, Kent. He started his career as an art teacher, before quitting after sixteen years to focus on his work. Much of his work is figural, reflecting an interest in the human face and form, and is primarily in steel, which he describes as giving a scale and "whoom-factor" not possible with other media.

Early life and education

Kirby was born in 1952 into a naval family. He was interested in art as a child, and went on to study it after high school. From 1969 to 1970 he studied at the Somerset College of Art, and from 1970 to 1973 at the Newport College Of Art, from which he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts. This education was both liberating and confusing, he said, and left him without an idea for the direction of his work. From 1973 to 1974 he therefore studied towards an Art Teacher's Diploma at the University of Birmingham, and spent the next sixteen years teaching art.

During his time as a teacher Kirby's own artistic sense bent towards sculpture, and after sixteen years he quit teaching to focus on his work. For the next three years he sculpted in stone, before a steel-working co-tenant asked him to try out his welder. "Steel released me", Kirby said. "It gave me the ability to go huge, a scale that just is not possible with stone": a "whoom-factor!" As he described it, "it is the juxtaposition of steel in its raw form, cold-industrial, and the warm-human that my art breathes into it – that is my fascination."

Work

Kirby's oeuvre is largely figural, reflecting a fascination with the human face and form that has persisted since his time working in stone. Though he uses an industrial medium in steel, Kirby's pieces are intended to express elegance and grace, and guardianship; a reviewer of one of his exhibitions noted that "they do not dominate their settings, but instead calmly watch over their environment with an air of gentle theatricality."

Most of Kirby's pieces are public commissions, and are therefore monumental in size. His pieces range in height from one to ten metres; his 2002 sculpture ''Sutton Hoo Helmet'', modelled after the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship-burial and unveiled by Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, is tall and deep, and weighs .

Several of Kirby's pieces are displayed in the Palace of Westminster in London, and in Putney along the banks of the River Thames. His works have been unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret, and Prince Edward. When unveiling ''When the Sky's the Limit the Spirits Soar'' in 2005, Prince Edward remarked that "I don't know quite what the word is. It seems to represent something going upwards."

Notable commissions

*''Crouching Lady'' in Bardon Mill, 1997
*''The Ring of Hope'' in the Gardens of Gaia, 1997
*''Figure in Middle of Lake'' in the Gardens of Gaia, 1997
*Public sculpture in Castlemilk, Glasgow, as part of the district's Gateways and Landmarks project in 1999 (Kirby's first Bronze)
*'' Cross the Divide'' at the Main Entrance of St Thomas' Hospital, London, 2000
*''Sutton Hoo Helmet'' (pictured at right), Sutton Hoo exhibition hall, Suffolk, 2002
*''Arc of Angels'' at Portishead, 2002, commemorating Portishead Radio Station
*''Formation'' (pictured above) in Ravenswood, Ipswich, 2003
*''Spiral Formation'' for South Woodham Ferrers Leisure Centre swimming pool, 2005
*''When the Sky's the Limit the Spirits Soar'', 2005
*''The Face'' at Wigan, 2008
* Reflections of Bedford, Silver Street, Bedford, 2009
*''Crouching Figure'', Oakley Court Hotel, Windsor, 2012
*''Hands'', Woodbridge Quay Church, Suffolk, 2016
*''20th Century Head'' with others in the sculpture garden at Burghley House, Stamford

References

Bibliography

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External links

Glasgow, City of Sculpture



an Advanced Skills Teacher in Art & Design at William de Ferrers School, Essex.

Montcoffer
(archived fro

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirby, Rick
1952 births
Living people
English sculptors
English male sculptors
People from Gillingham, Kent