Patricia Volk
Patricia Volk works in painted fired clay and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Sculptors. She was born in Belfast and has a studio in Somerset.
Patricia’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Buekenholf-Phoenix Gallery in Belgium, Chichester Cathedral and the Royal West of England Academy. She was Regional Winner of the ING “Discerning Eye” prize in 2007 and is shortlisted for the prestigious Brian Mercer Residency.
Last year Patricia was invited by the Trustees of the Designer Crafts Foundation to go to Israel as one of their guest sculptors. Patricia says, “as a sculptor I love working with the directness of clay, making one-off pieces, which are fired then finished with acrylic paint. Classical sculpture was always highly coloured but we have this erroneous idea that they were all white and sterile looking. My obsession as an artist is catching a very simple form or line, then enhancing it with colour. Sometimes these are juxtapositions that I hope suggest contradictions of strength and fragility, stability and precariousness – like the relationships between human beings – but also of rest and activity, grace and motion, that give an object a lively presence and a sense of individual character. But really all this is open to the eye of the beholder. I never want to be too prescriptive, and in saying this much I’ve probably said too much.”