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About the Artist
Neil Wood has been a practising professional sculpture and fine artist for three decades. He has many years experience teaching and lecturing in fine art and sculpture at institutions in the UK. He has worked in various settings; in education, as artist in residence and visiting lecturer, alongside his practice producing sculpture for exhibition and commissions.
He employs a Modernist methodology to explore the human condition in the 21st century. He continues to use the figure as a vehicle to explore formal material qualities and visual language as a means of expressing, often complex ideas, about the world we inhabit and the nature of human experience and relationships.
He sees his practice as two distinct strands; public commissions and gallery artworks. Commissions provide opportunities to work on a large scale requiring understanding of sculpture in specific context and an engagement with community and stake holders. Sculpture for a gallery setting represents a more direct creative output, where the work develops, free from the constraints of a commission brief. The work evolves by experimentation with materials and process.
b-1963
Education
Rochdale College of Art, Foundation Certificate in Art & Design, 1984-85
Wimbledon School of Art, BA Hons Degree in Fine Art – Sculpture, 1985-88
Keele University, MA Visual Art in Contemporary Culture (Theory), 1995-97
Staffordshire University, PGCE Level 7 DTTLS, 2008-09
Commissions
‘Mercury’ Goodyear UK Ltd, Wolverhampton, large public sculpture commission, 1998
‘Walking Together’ Diocese of Lichfield, St Nicholas’s Church, site specific commission, 2002
‘Violin’ Safeway’s supermarket, Greater Manchester, large scale public commission, 2003
Pritchard Holdings, Staffs Technology Park, two major public sculpture commissions, 2003-04
‘Heritage’ Cannock Council, Sculpture Commemorating Mining Industry, Unveiled by Arts Minister Estelle Morris, 2004
‘Falcon’ Pritchard Holdings, Cannock, 6 metre sculpture, 2005
‘Wedding Party’ Birmingham City Council, New Central Registry Office, 2005
‘The Glow Tree’ Oxford City Council, 6 metre community arts project & commission, 3006
Laser Process Ltd, 3 metre public sculpture, 2005/6
‘Together We Can Fly’ Pendeford College, Wolverhampton, Workshops & commission, 2007
Hilllstone Primary, Birmingham, workshop & sculpture commission, 2007
The Upper House, Barlaston, Staffs,sculpture commission 'First Dance' 2015
GE Grid Solutions UK, Three sculpture commission, 2016
Stafford Borough Council & Beacon Business Park, Public Sculpture Commission, 2017