[b]Exciting night of British Sculpture - Conrad Shawcross & Cathy De Monchaux 31/01/13[/b]

Leeds College of Art would like to invite you to an exciting night with two diverse and contemporary British sculptors, Cathy de Monchaux and Conrad Shawcross, they will discuss their work, careers and inspirations to kick off our 2013 Creative Networks programme.
Creative Networks is Leeds College of Art's major professional events programme with talks from a diverse group of high profile speakers from across the creative industries to entertain, challenge and make us think.

We would like you to join us from 6pm at our Blenheim Walk building on the 31st January for drinks - prior to the talk there will be goods on sale from our own In Press Design Studio shop, Interdisciplinary students and the Village bookstore. At 7pm Conrad and Cathy will start their talks followed by an opportunity for questions and answers.

Cathy de MonchauxCathy de Monchaux is a British sculptor; she has exhibited at the Whitechapel Gallery, the Tate and was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1998. In 2002, de Monchaux exhibited in her Hoxton home, ‘At Home’, in collaboration with Vince Clark and Martyn Ware. In the intervening time she exhibited internationally with great success, particularly in the USA.
Her sculptures use materials such as glass, paper, metal and leather. They frequently juxtapose seductive soft elements, often with strongly sexual overtones, with harder materials, often spikey or in some way appearing to constrain the softer parts, resulting in work which is both sensual and threatening. Her imagery is sexual, hinting at the bordello and all that it voluptuously implies.
In more recent work, however, she has produced a series of all-white, celestial sculptures that subtly reference such worldly concerns as gender identity and the war in Iraq.
She currently lives in London and is a part-time teacher at the Slade School of Art. De Monchaux was born in London she studied first at the Camberwell School of Art (1980–1983), and later at Goldsmiths College in London (1985–1987).

Conrad ShawcrossShawcross describes himself as a thinker and a maker, he designs and builds machines with the intention of exploring the laws of science, and demonstrating the abstract nature of scientific thought in a practical manifestation.
Shawcross' work came to prominence at the 2004 ‘New Blood’ exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery at County Hall, London. He exhibited ‘The Nervous System’, a large, symmetrical, working loom producing over 20,000 metres of double-helix coloured rope every week.
Installations in 2009-Shawcross also completed a horizontal rope machine in the Holborn Tunnel, London and a vast 60 foot high vertical version, ‘Nervous System (Inverted’) in the Sculpture Gallery, New York.
In 2008, he was nominated and awarded the first prestigious "International Fellowship" award at Location One, a non-profit art gallery in the SoHo arts district of New York City where his exhibition "Control" was on. Credits include his inclusion among The Observer's 2004 list of 80 most talented young people, the First Base Acava Free Studio Award and the Ray Finnis Charitable Trust Award in 2001. He is represented by the Victoria Miro Gallery.
His most recent work in 2012 was a huge raw steel robot for‘Metamorphosis: Titian 2012’, a large collaboration between the National Gallery and the Royal Ballet.
Shawcross was born in London and received his education at Westminster School, the Chelsea School of Art, The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art (University of Oxford), and the Slade School of Art, University College London.

http:creativenetworks2013 dot eventbrite dot co dot uk/