Featured Artist: Paul Digby

Paul Digby is a practising artist based in Leeds and has exhibited widely throughout the UK. He has shown work in the Saatchi Gallery, Wellcome museum, and The Tetley, and is currently touring his most recent project, a celebration of the public sector, in venues throughout England.

“Over time my practice has evolved to be concerned with how the body expresses emotions. I began to draw parallels with classical sculptures and their subject matter of heroes. I wanted to portray a contemporary hero and I regard people working with emergency services as heroes, although they don’t necessarily see themselves in this way.

To produce this new body of work, I worked with people in the emergency services and photographed them responding to classical poses. These photographs were then developed into a series of drawings and sculptures. The drawings are made from graphite on paper with a grain using crosshatch and circular movements in between layers of fixative. The sculptures were initially created using clay modelling and then, with the help of York College BA contemporary crafts staff and students, each model was cast using plaster and then painted with an acrylic matt paint. 

The work is currently touring and will be shown in York, Manchester, Sheffield and North Lincolnshire, in addition to the original exhibition at East Gallery, Norwich. In addition to my work, there will also be a series of talks in the galleries, as well as an installation of over 700 small clay fired figures made by three schools.”

You can find out more about Paul’s work on CuratorSpace or Axisweb and you can follow him on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. 

Upcoming dates for the exhibition:

Saul Hay Gallery, Manchester, June
Emergency Services Museum, Sheffield, August
York College Gallery, September
Ropewalk Gallery, Barton-on-Humber, TBC

The project is supported by Arts Council England.

Image courtesy of East Gallery.

Interview by Jodie Beardmore.

 

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