ABOUT STEPHEN HURST

Steve Hurst was born in Cairo in 1932. Evacuated from Egypt on the outbreak of war he was educated in England then, following National Service in Malaya, he worked in the engineering industry. These two aspects of his life retain a strong presence in his work. Having studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing, the University of Oxford and then at Goldsmiths College (1959-60), Hurst trained in casting under the legendary bronze founder Alberto Angeloni at the Royal College of Art (1968-69). In 1971, Hurst was invited by George Fullard to run the sculpture foundry at Chelsea School of Art and went on, in 1979, to become Head of the Sculpture department at the University of Ulster in Belfast.

In 1982 Hurst and his wife, Sylvie, set up a foundry to cast sculpture in Oxfordshire, and began a long and happy association with Pangolin Editions. Hurst then began working as a foundry consultant and training adviser to NGOs in developing countries. While working in Uganda and Eastern Sudan he took a part-time MA in colonial and post-colonial history and has since published a number of military history books.

Hurst's work, cast, fabricated, drawn or written, often actively questions common opinion and official history and contrasts it with his own personal experience. Hurst's enigmatic sculptures, collages and assemblages that result from these combined interests are instantly recognisable in form yet imbued with a poignant sense of the fragments of human life left behind after futile combat or disaster.

Quote: Polly Bieleke, Pangolin London Gallery