David iredale

“The human body is at the core of my work; it is what motivates and excites me artistically. It has the ability to provide the sculptor with that unique balance of grace, power and subtlety of form.”

David is an artist based in Leeds in West Yorkshire. Working in different mediums, he specialises in figurative sculpture. Using stone, wood or clay, these are mostly a celebration of the human form. He caught the bug for sculpture after attending a sculpture course at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. He enjoys working with different stone and wood types, has carved marble in Pietrasanta, Italy, and loves the challenge of new materials, like the Indian stones in the Emanation Series. Working from his small studio, his usual method for sculpting is to make a preparatory maquette from clay, using sources that include photographs and life drawings and collaborating with live models.

Life drawing is an integral part of David's practice, with a large portfolio of drawings and paintings, many of which are from the life drawing group, Bare Canvas, he runs with his wife in the University area of Leeds.

He has exhibited his work widely in the north of England, displaying a wide variety of his drawings, paintings and sculpture, and in 2021, he created and curated Sculpture Show North, a major exhibition in The Corn Exchange, Leeds. This led to him gathering a group of sculptors from the Show, and together they opened The Sculpture Gallery, also in The Corn Exchange, where their work can be seen today.