Charles Hadcock

Charles Hadcock was born in Derby in 1965. He studied at Gloucestershire College of Art and Design (1984-87) and at the Royal College of Art, London (1987-89). His degree show at the Royal College generated a good deal of interest in his work, and many encouraging comments in the press. The ideas he was then trying out in his sculpture…

Charles Hadcock was born in Derby in 1965. He studied at Gloucestershire College of Art and Design (1984-87) and at the Royal College of Art, London (1987-89). His degree show at the Royal College generated a good deal of interest in his work, and many encouraging comments in the press. The ideas he was then trying out in his sculpture - using multiple images and explorations of the ready-made - remain important in his work today. A background in engineering (his father was an engineer), an abiding interest in Victorian engineering and in mathematics have enriched those original preoccupations, and are all present in his current work. His is not entirely a cool and calculated art, but one that also has analogies with poetry and music.

Transformation also plays its part. Polystyrene packaging might be cast in bronze and repeated as a multiple (it is a multiple in the first place), artificial paving stones - mass produced - are found giving texture and repetitive form in some sculptures. The nuts and bolts of nineteenth- century engineered bridges are celebrated in his work, giving the underside of the sculpture equal importance with the rest. Geometry also plays a part, in particular the Golden Section, based on the coordinates of Hadcock's own body, as do the rhythm, pause, crescendos and calm of music. All of this culminates in bronze or cast iron. Hadcock uses factory casting for his sculpture in preference to fine art foundries, as he likes the basic qualities of the factory processes to come through in the sculpture, and in particular revels in the qualities of cast iron.

Charles Hadcock has exhibited regularly in group shows since 1987, and has had one-man exhibitions at 249 Long Lane, London (1991), the Crypt Galley, London (1992) and Reeds Wharf Gallery, London (1996). His work can be seen at BAA Gatwick Stirling Hotel, Brighton Seafront, Melbourne Science Park, Cambridgeshire, ICI, and Allied Domecq.