Patrica Volk's Celtic-inspired Heads

Artist’s Biography:

Patricia was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She studied art at Middlesex Polytechnic and Ceramics at Bath, and has exhibited widely across the UK. Her work can be found in a number of private and public Collections. Some examples of her commissions and site-specific projects are:-
The Deities (1996) Hannah Peschar Sculpture Gardens, Surrey
The Water Deities (1997) Artsway, Hampshire (garden designer Cleve West)
Audience and Muse (1998) Brewhouse Art Centre, Taunton
This year she has had exhibitions in Chichester Cathedral, Queen's College Taunton, The Royal West of England Academy in Bristol and has been specially selected invited artist for the 'Discerning Eye Exhibition' at the Mall galleries, London.

Artist’s Statement:

In my search to create modern icons, heads have become an obsession to me. I have been inspired in part by the Celtic cult of the head, in which they were used as symbolic of the forces of nature and also to warn away children from dangerous place such as rivers.

Over the years I have developed an ongoing series of vessel-like Deity Heads. More lately they represent 'Totem' heads with coloured, sometimes complex markings. If the heads are containers, not of intellect, but of something spiritual, something secret and un-knowable, these markings represent a mapping of the various journeys of life; the spots pinpointing the many events, thoughts, places times. My use of medical symbols on occasion, are to signify how we are essentially made up of any array of chemicals.

I have wanted to move away from the realism and unnecessary detail that I see in a lot of work depicting the human figure or face, instead preferring to concentrate on a simplicity of form in order to reflect inner emotion.

The sculptures, which are made for interior or exterior use, are in ceramic, coiled, sometimes painted in acrylic, often mounted on Welsh slate.

Patricia Volk ARBS
www.patriciavolk.co.uk