'Pipe Dream' 2003
'Tongue in Cheek' 2002
Artists
Arthur Giardelli
Brendan Burns
Carol Hiles
Christine Kinsey
Chris Shurrock
Clive Hicks-Jenkins
Dennis Gardner
Dilys Jackson
Emrys Williams
Glyn Jones
Harvey Hood
John Selway
Martyn Jones
Peter Seabourne
Peter Spriggs
Robert Harding
Robert Alwyn Hughes
Sue Hunt
Sue Williams
Tom Piper
Richard Renshaw
Antonia Spowers
Ken Elias
Robert Harding
robert_harding_99@yahoo.co.uk
"I was taught by the last generation of Modernist and Minimalist artists who instilled in me the respect for the power of form and the importance of precise detail, craft skills and clarity/simplicity. In addition my art education coincided with the Punk and Post-Modern revolution and I was also lucky enough to be taught by Edward Allington who showed me that art could also be ironic, witty, subversive and just plain fun.
Although many of my pieces are made of metal, I have also used media ranging from stone to feathers, plastic to bronze, glass to concrete, rope to money.
I am a sculptor who likes to explore and seeks to juxtapose contrasting features: geometry and organic form, sensuousness and aggression, metaphor and symbolism, human and gravitas - such deliberately ambigious work aims to stimulate many imaginative references".
Robert Harding trained at Coventry Polytechnic, Exeter College of Art & Design and the University of Lancaster. He moved to Wales in 1982 and has been a part time lecturer at Dyfed College of Art since that date; he has also been visiting lecturer at various other Art Colleges in Wales and England.
In 1987 he was awarded a travelling scholarship to Rumania by the British Council and was also appointed Craftsman-in-Residence in West Glamorgan. In 1994 he was appointed Artist in Residence at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia.In 2000 Robert Harding was awarded the first Wakelin Purchase Prize by the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery Swansea and in 2003 was commissioned to make the Madog Award for the Hay on Wye Literature Festival. In 2005 he was awarded the Sculpture Prize at the Welsh Artist of the Year event at St David's Hall Cardiff.
Robert Harding has participated in numerous exhibitions in Britain, Europe and USA with both indoor and outdoor pieces of sculpture. Over the last twenty years he has also been commissioned to produce a number of site-specific sculptures.