Roger Clarke

Personal statement

I have been a practicing artist for over twenty years and a lecturer for almost the same amount of time. Since I completed my undergraduate degree in 1989, my work has developed from installations that were an investigation in to a space or place to the large molecular objects that I have most recently exhibited.

With the benefit of a year long Henry Moore Sculpture Fellowship at Winchester School of Art in 1991, I created a series of sculptures that were fabricated in steel, aluminium and predominantly perforated steel. These geometric forms sat securely on the floor or wall but shimmered as the viewer went past due to the moiré effect of the perforations. From 1996, I introduced bands of colour into my work to encourage the viewer’s eyes to travel along the sculptures.

Most recently, I have produced a series of sculptures that, whilst based on existing molecular structures, are not presented as scientific models but can be viewed instead as anthropomorphs with many of the characteristics of Japanese anime figures.

I have always had a fascination for the models and diagrams that have been produced by scientists to represent phenomena that are too large or too small to be seen or too complex to be explained. Having read numerous book on scientific visualisation theory, attended a number of conferences and leant to configure scientific data into three-dimensional models, I produced a sculpture, A View of a Non-visible World, in 2005 using post eruption data from Mount St Helens.

Academic qualifications

• BA(Hons) Slade School of Fine Art, UCL
• MA London Metropolitan University

Professional memberships

• Royal British Society of Sculptors
• National Association for Fine Art Education

External examiners

External Examiner for B.A. (Hons.) Fine Art at De Montfort University from 2007 to 2011

Other external roles

• External Adviser for the validation of B.A. (Hons.) Interdisciplinary Fine Art at Thames Valley University (Reading College) in 2004
• External Adviser for the Review and Re-approval of MA Fine Art at the University of Chichester 2007
• External Adviser for the Review and Revalidation of B.A. (Hons.)Fine Art at Byam Shaw and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design 2008/09

Teaching specialism

Fine Art - Sculpture

Current scholarship

My current practice has come about through research into scientific visualisation and computerised fabrication processes. I have always had a fascination for the models and diagrams that have been produced by scientists to represent phenomena that are too large or too small to be seen or too complex to be explained. Having read numerous book on scientific visualisation theory, attended a number of conferences and leant to configure scientific data into three-dimensional models, I produced a sculpture, A View of a Non-visible World, using post eruption data from Mount St Helens.

Most recently, I have produced a series of sculptures that, whilst based on existing molecular structures, are not presented as scientific models but can be viewed instead as anthropomorphs with many of the characteristics of Japanese anime figures.

Media contributions

Contemporary(Magazine) issue no. 55, pages 44-45 - 'West of England' - article about contemporary art activity in Bath and Bristol - September 2003

Front Row, BBC Radio 4 - Paul Neagu - Interview about sculptor Paul Neagu on the opening of 'Palpable Sculpture' - a major retrospective on his work at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds - 14 August 2015