Iain Hales
Concerns over texture, material and colour are central to my sculptural practice. My works are almost entirely produced by hand, with an exacting focus on the quality of execution. Research towards colour came into my work in 2010, leading to an increased interest in painting and the fundamental question ‘what would a painting made by a sculptor look like?’ In my continual attempt to collapse the space between painting and sculpture, I explore the slippage between ‘object’ and ‘image’, three-dimensionality and flatness, form, and surface. I am especially interested in the way our perception of a given colour is influenced by its proximity to other colours and by the material in which that colour resides.
I exploit the semiotic associations of materials and colour to communicate meaning in my work, very often juxtaposing materials typically used in furnishing interiors with more esoteric artists’ materials and am interested in finding unexpected equivalences between these things.
Beyond these more formal concerns, my work, and the research around it, speaks directly to the history of the photographic reproduction of sculpture. I find the way a flattened, photographic, documentary image becomes a stand-in for the art object itself fascinating. This is nothing new, it has been happening for as long as photography has existed; however, the accelerating dematerialisation of the means by which these images are made and distributed, makes the subject feel urgent, as we spend ever more time glued to our screens, consuming digital simulacra of the physical world.
Solo Exhibitions
2016: Head, William Benington Gallery, London.
2015: Villa Charlotte, 9B Projects, London.
2014: Post-Model Montage, Standpoint Gallery, London.
2013: Euclidean Display Unit, m2 Gallery, London.
2012: Iain Hales, Cole, London.
2006: Folly, Hyperground, Edinburgh. Part of the Edinburgh Annuale.
Group Exhibitions
2024: Thinking is Making, Cross Lane Projects, Kendal.
2024: Sinker, The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow.
2023: Thinking is Making, Mark Tanner Sculpture Award 20 year anniversary exhibition, Standpoint Gallery, London.
2022: m2 Gallery ARTISTS: RECENT WORK 2, ASC Gallery, London.
2022: The Comrades They Were Brave - We Salute You!, 44 GRS Gallery, London.
2021: The Hidden Horizontal. Cornices in Art and Architecture, Graphische Sammlung ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
2020: Scenograph, Obiter Architecture, London.
2019: Threshold, m2 Gallery, London.
2019: Summer Show, Royal Society of Sculptors, Dora House, London.
2018: m2(at)15, APT Gallery, London.
2015: I'm in Love with Rococo, part of ITA, curated by (It's All) Tropical, Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Leeds.
2014: Show Off, LeandaKateLouise, London.
2014: Putt Putt #2, Turf Projects, Croydon, London.
2013: Sculpturing, Two Queens, Leicester.
2012: A Wall Is A Surface, LeandaKateLouise, Londonewcastle Project Space, London
2012: Switch, selected by Phyllida Barlow, BALTIC 39, Newcastle
2011: 26, LeandaKateLouise, London.
2010: Underfoot, 93-99 Clerkenwell Road, London.
2010: Formal Inquiry, Cole, London.
2010: Changing the Nature, Purge Projects, Vulpes Vulpes, London
2006: Nimes Biennale, Nimes, France.
2006: ESW’s New Members Exhibition, Leith Festival, Leith, Midlothian.
2005: Magazine, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshops, Edinburgh.
2005: RSA Student Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh.
2004: 498, Evolution House, Edinburgh.
2004: Who chewed ma pencil…, Total Kunst, Edinburgh.
Awards/Residencies
2022: Villa Lena Foundation, Artist Residency, Palaia, Italy.
2013: Mark Tanner Sculpture Award, Standpoint Gallery, London.
2009: Craignish Trust Emerging Artist Residency, Cove Park, Argyle And Bute, Scotland
2009: Adrian Carruthers Studio Award, The Slade School of Fine Art (shortlisted).
2008: Merz Barn, Littoral Arts Trust, Artist Residency, Ambleside, England
2007-2009: SAAS post-graduate funding.
2005: Andrew Grant bequest, Edinburgh College of Art.
Press/Publications
Thinking is Making - Objects in a Space, Black Dog Press, London, 2023.
Art Monthly, The Comrades They Were Brave - We Salute You! exhibition review, Cherry Smyth, May 2022.
The Comrades They Were Brave - We Salute You! exhibition catalogue. Essay by Chris Fite-Wassilak. March 2022.
EROS Journal - Issue VI, 'Homotopia', Villa Charlotte, by Emma Letizia Jones, Summer 2015.
YAC (Young Artists in Conversation), Iain Hales, by David McLeavy, April 2015.
Ambit Magazine - Issue 217, Summer Salon, Summer 2014.
Post-Model Montage, Iain Hales: Mark Tanner Sculpture Award. Exhibition catalogue, with essay – Warehouse Republic – by Chris Fite-Wassilak, Standpoint Gallery, 2014.
The Skinny, Showcase: Iain Hales, November 2012.
Surface Magazine, Material Man, by Marina Cashdan, April 2012.
Education
2007-2009: MFA Sculpture, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London.
2001-2005: BA (Hons) Sculpture, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh.
