Paul Day (Born 1967)
Following his artistic training at Cheltenham School of Art, Paul was lucky enough to win an award from the Prince’s Trust, enabling him to begin his professional career almost immediately. He has spent over twenty years developing a highly personal approach to figurative sculpture, with a particular interest in representing the human form in high-relief, architectural settings. Drawing influence from Breughel to Stanley Spencer’s mystic vision of modernity, Paul Day has forged a uniquely contemporary take on urban life within a traditional medium.
Since his first solo show in Paris in 1995, Paul has undertaken many commissions and exhibited internationally, including the USA, Canada, Japan and Europe. His work in terracotta, resin and bronze has not least been admired for its particularly personal attention to the use of perspective, often creating the effect of dizzying depth in just a few inches.
It was due to an exhibition at the Sculpture Foundation in Goodwood in 2001 that Paul was asked to enter an international competition for a monument to the Battle of Britain. Paul won, and his work was unveiled by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall on Battle of Britain Day in 2005. You can see the winning piece on the Embankment, near Big Ben. Since then, Paul has undertaken further work under the eye of the royal family, not least designing the reverse side of the 2012 Diamond Jubilee sovereign and creating ‘The Memorial to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’ in 2009. Publicly, Paul’s work greets continental visitors to London in the guise of ‘The Lovers, St Pancras’, a nine metre tall statue of an embracing couple situated in St Pancras railway station.
Paul lives and works in Burgundy, France.