Douglas Clark

I would describe myself as an 'Artist-Constructor'. I love the engineering aesthetic and that runs through my work. I like the way a piece of work can interact with different spaces in different ways. It informs the way I think and 'design' my work.

As much as I would like to say I've been an artist since school days, that's not the case. My first love was the sea and I spent a long time crossing oceans for a living. It was exposure to other cultures that drove my curiosity.

Later in life I did something that had been nagging away at me for years. I strove to become an artist... Not the first seaman to want to be an artist, there's Lucien Freud and Alfred Wallis to name but two.

So I went to art school in 2003 and graduated with a BA in 2006. I thought I could do a little better, so gained a Masters in 2008 and now have a Doctorate.... that wasn't the original idea when I ran away to sea at 16 or even when I started at art school.

....oh and should that not be enough and I have a  British Board of Trade First Class Certificate of Competency [Steam and Motor Ships] as well, if that has any relevance. Well probably not now but I'm quite proud of that one, it was hard.

If anyone wants to check my doctoral thesis it is 'The Neo-Monument - Monuments of Dissent and their Emergence in the late 20th and early 21st Century' - its a corker.