Séamus Moran b. 1963 in the Midlands, graduated in 1984 at Birmingham polytechnic with a Ba hons degree in 3D design specializing in Ceramics and glass. For several years he worked in the potteries in Stoke on Trent as a designer and model-maker, where he learned about mass production and became proficient at mould-making.
In 1988 he moved to Cornwall and set up in business in 1990, providing a mould-making and casting service for artists and the ceramics industry as well as producing his own commercial designs in resin.
One of his pieces was awarded the “People’s choice prize” at The 2008 Bluecoat National Sculpture Competition in Liverpool. A short film about Moran and his work is featured on the BBC Video nation website.
Although this has been Moran’s main avenue of creating work, recently he has been working in different media. Urban Burka, the artist’s short-listed Threadneedle submission in 2013 was created by stripping down training shoes to provide the component parts needed. These were then painstakingly reassembled around a mannequin and sewn into place.
In 2014 Moran was awarded first prize at the 6th Passion for freedom festival for his sculpture “Harness”, a suit of armour for a bird. This piece has been displayed for five months this year at The Tower of London as part of a tour of Royal Armouries sites. In 2015 Moran was accepted as a member of the Royal British society of sculptors. A year later his work “Decade” won the best installation award at the National open art competition.
The artist enjoyes working with combinations of seemingly incompatible ideas and forms to produce sculptures. Inspired by childhood memories of museum visits, fossils and armour, and his industry background in mould-making Moran aims to produce convincing & meticulously constructed figurative pieces, often with a strong social comment. He uses a lot of widely different materials and construction methods often having to learn completely new techniques and skills. The artist’s objective is to give body to his own insights on the human condition through these dark, slightly humorous sculptures, introducing questionable values by the rethinking of familiar objects.
