Ian Patrick Palmer

Website:

www.ianpatrickpalmer.com

Group Of Small Working Men and Working Man Bust

Daedalus Rising - Water and Fire Sculpture

Medusa - Water Sculpture

Biography

I work in raku ceramic, copper and steel - working in raku permits me to build my own, sometimes large, kilns, and thereby take ceramic sculpting to larger dimension, and allows me to experiment freely. I frequently create life-size ceramic figures.

inspiration

I grew up among the ironworks and steel mills of the Black Country, and began sculpting in metal in my early teens. Later leaving the industrial wasteland for the bright skies of southern Spain, where I lived for over 20 years, I developed a love of olive wood, and have been joining wood and metal ever since. The trinity of my materials is completed by clay, in the shape of Raku, which with its metallic glazes brings me full circle to the foundries of my youth.
Raku ceramics, metal and wood – together they allow me to explore the relationship between the man-made and nature, chance and intention.

medium

I combine painstakingly heat-coloured copper or steel and the natural graining of old English elm, oak and yew with the chance outcomes of the raku glaze. The unpredictable nature of raku informs the eventual hard-won order of a finished piece.
My current cycles of work are the Working Men Cycle and the Classical Cycle; they are ever growing and recently I have added large-scale water and fire sculptures, part of the Classical Cycle, as well as small scale and life size Working Men.

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