About The Artist
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Tony Roberts
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Biography
I’ve been a professional artist for just 4 years… and I’m now 60… so, as you can guess, I’ve done a few things before starting to earn a living from my art. Most of my life has been spent as a systems designer: I wish I had made the jump into art sooner! However, I’ve always been an artist, starting when I became a monk in my late teens: I prepared all sorts of monastic documents, becoming quite adept at calligraphy and iconic art. This lead to my going to art school, eventually becoming a teacher, and taking up ceramics along the way. After I left the monastery, I married an artist and writer, and we had two daughters. All four of us are artists – the house is a riot of paintings and ceramics. About ten years ago I took a course in sculpture, and realised how important it was to me to seriously develop my artwork. I bought myself an old kiln, and started making ceramic sculptures, for myself. Then, 5 years back, I tried fusing glass in my kiln, and was instantly hooked. What especially excited me was the way in which I was able to express some of the characteristics I find thought-provoking in ancient, man-made things, like Standing Stones and ancient buildings. There are echoes of this influence in all my current work. Within a few months I’d bought another, more glass-suitable kiln, and was selling my glass on eBay: a year later I’d sold enough to afford a custom-made glass kiln, one which would let me make human-sized work. I’d also learned a lot about technique, and what could and couldn’t be done with glass. I’d rejected modern bright commercially-made art glasses, and was staining my own glass using raw metals: this makes my work quite unusual, and very earthy. I love translucent, organic, atmospheric artwork, whatever its subject. Now, I sell glass across Europe and the US, and have exhibited here, and in Australia.
Signed up on 01/23/2007
Category: 3 Dimensional
