About

Based in the north of England, Andrew Kay is an award winning sculptor whose work can be seen throughout the world.

From his studio set in the wild hills of his native county of Cumbria, Andrew creates sculpture that attracts widespread acclaim; his work being commissioned by both public bodies and private collectors. Drawing from the natural world for inspiration, the life size sculptures capture the powerful anatomy and essence of wild beasts using deceptively simple form and structure.

Andrew graduated from Leeds with a BA Hons in design in 1992. He then toured Scandinavia extensively on a travel scholarship. From this experience he acquired a respect of the pure, clean design ethos that is so apparent in Scandinavian design. Following a period as a set designer for The Franz Kafka Theatre in Prague he returned to England and established a sculpture studio near Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria in 1994.

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INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW – FIELD MAGAZINE

Ever since Hamlet instructed his players to “hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature”, artists have tried to achieve this ideal. Cumbria wildlife sculptor Andrew Kay goes a step further, making nature itself the mirror for his work. His canvas is the sky, a hillside or even a full moon, against which he sketches with steel.

Though his sculptures are permanent and three-dimensional, their impact is of something fleeting or glimpsed, often ephemeral, as with his two hares boxing in front of the full moon. It would be easy to obsess over the question of whether the landscape defines the sculpture or whether the sculpture provides a punctuation on the landscape, but Andrew insists “I am spontaneous about the work. They do want to be seen in the context of the landscape. I want you to see the silhouette of the form of the sculpture. And so the backdrop of the landscape delineates the work itself. I try to be immediate when it comes to the making of the sculptures- just to suggest the feeling of a flexed hock or the bend of the neck. I am focusing on getting life in the sculpture. When I am making an alert hind I try to capture that she is looking up and she’s watching you. I want to catch the essence of that moment of her watchfulness.

“I like the spontaneity of working in metal. It is very quick. You can sketch with it in a way – the way you bend the metal is like making a charcoal sketch on paper. The material is pretty forgiving and it is great fun to work with. I use mild steel mainly; it is quite soft to work with and yet it has permanence.”

Despite having a degree in design, and travelling quite extensively, Andrew returned to set up a small sculpture workshop a few miles from his home town of Kirkby Lonsdale. “Even as a child I used to be whittling a stick or something,” he remembers. “I am so lucky to live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by all this scenery, so that my inspiration is all around me – you can see nature just by looking out of the kitchen window. When we close down the workshop in the evening everything quietens down and that’s when the wildlife comes out and makes itself known.”

Now, twenty five years on, Andrew’s work can be seen all over the world. “We have several sculptures in Singapore, remarkably! A client in Mauritius sent me photographs of a herd of my deer with the Indian Ocean in the background which looked most inviting, and we have recently had a Stag and Hind delivered by helicopter to a chalet in the Swiss alps!” But he confesses “Times were lean when we were getting started and then, around 25 years ago, my wife suggested we take an advert in the Daily Telegraph, which we couldn’t really afford but 14 commissions came in from that one advert and that was the start of it all.

Viewing’ Kay’s sculptures “in the wild”, as it were, is a little more difficult. “I recently exhibited in Notting Hill but with the nature of my work I don’t often have collective exhibitions. The big plan for the next couple of years is to create a sculpture park here in Cumbria – my dream is to have an amphitheatre as well.” In the meantime, Kay is happy to welcome visitors and give tips for those who want to track down his work in its natural habitat.