Neil took part in our Natural Order Exhibition in 2024 as a guest artist - if you'd like to purchase or find out more about Neil's work please visit his website at https://www.neilrmason.com

 

Neil Mason's work has understandably won numerous awards in the last several years including; XIV Biennale Internazionale D’Arte Contemporanea e Design Di Firenze Terzo Premio ‘Lorenzo Il Magnifico’ Sculptura 2023, Luxembourg Art Prize: Certificate of Artistic Achievement 2022, Wildlife Artist of the Year - David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation: Shortlisted/Selected 2022,  The Wildlife Art Society International: Silver Citation 2022, The Wildlife Art Society International: Honorary Fellow Member - 2015, Marwell International Wildlife Art Society: Best Overall Art Work 2012 amongst many more.

Born in Wales, Neil displayed an early natural talent for modelling, gravitating to wildlife. However, pursuing a career in mental healthcare, serving both as a clinician and senior manager, it wasn’t until around 2009 he felt compelled to sculpt. Subsequently his sculptures attracted multiple awards, including winning the sculpture category at The David Shepherd Foundation, Wildlife Artist of The Year. He is an Honorary Fellow at The Wildlife Art Society International. Neil’s work is exhibited in Italy and Greece and across the UK with a range of galleries and wildlife art societies.

Fascinated with wildlife and its biodiversity, Neil the uses the Mesopotamian cultural inception of cuneiform writing as a device to analog our imperative to transform and adapt. Where pictographic animal illustrations on clay tablets – used as a means of communication – transitioned into abstract forms as cuneiform characters to form word-concepts. Neil imagines cuneiform tablets as moulds, employing the characters (negative voids) to cast positive triangular versions. These characters are assembled as recognisable animal representations on the cusp of segmenting into cuneiform characters. His sculptures encapsulate this transformative-adaptation as it grasps contemporary expression.

“Like many children I enjoyed anthropomorphic allegories along with the visceral meditative experience of transfiguring clay into animal models, and still do. I’m enthralled by wildlife’s sheer diversity, their super-powers, and astounding range of resilient adaptation to ever challenging environments. This fascination for me extends to our individual and collective encounters with this necessity to adapt, and to continuously recreate ourselves in bio-psycho-socially impermanent landscapes.”​