Ivan Black (b. 1972), Nebula Ellipse, 2021
Plasma cut powder coated steel and LED’s
180 x 90 cm
Price: £25,000 plus any applicable taxes
Ivan Black (b. 1972) grew up in London and now lives and works in Pembrokeshire, west Wales. Black is an award-winning kinetic sculptor, celebrated for the striking interaction in his work between art, science and technology. Black’s interest in sculpture began at an early age and motion quickly became central to his work, adding as he saw it another layer of complexity and engagement to his experiments. An inherent problem solver, he spent his early years amassing multi-disciplinary skills in the pursuit of the means to realise his ideas.
Black’s work reflects a fascination and kinship with the mathematics of all organic life. Inspired by iconic natural geometry, he draws on the organising patterns found across nature - from plants, weather systems, the human body, and through to the cosmos. Distilling and counterbalancing elements of earth, sky and body, weight and lightness, precariousness and equilibrium — Black’s work reveals the interconnectedness of all living things and how order can silently govern our seemingly disordered world. Tending towards the minimalist in design, movement takes centre stage.
A finely balanced fusion of industrial, artistic and technological, Black builds complex fluid structures that mutate upon the introduction of energy. Creating a spirited, synergistic environment, the works invite us to interact with them. Energy is imparted to the works by wind, motor or manually by the viewer. Setting off mesmerising states of interplay and metamorphosis, the works are characterised by shifting patterns of motion, from fluid to highly organised, undulating and multi-sectioned. Black’s meticulously engineered and seamlessly integrated mechanisms are central to the behaviour and appeal of his work.
Black has exhibited worldwide at Interart Sculpture Park, Netherlands; Palmyra Sculpture Centre, Mallorca; Kinetica Museum, London and the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden, Surrey. He has had large scale works acquired for permanent public display by Jimo City, China; Cottesloe Beach Perth, Australia; Adobe HQ: Salt Lake City; Texas, USA; Nobu Hotel, London; and Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, UK.
