Edward Allington

Edward Allington was born in Troutbeck Bridge, Cumbria, in 1951. He studied at Lancaster College of Art (1968-71), the Central School of Art and Design, London (1971-74) and the Royal College of Art, where he read cultural history (1983-84). He won the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Prize (1989), was Gregory Fellow in Sculpture at Leeds University (1991-93) and Research Fellow in…

Edward Allington was born in Troutbeck Bridge, Cumbria, in 1951. He studied at Lancaster College of Art (1968-71), the Central School of Art and Design, London (1971-74) and the Royal College of Art, where he read cultural history (1983-84). He won the John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Prize (1989), was Gregory Fellow in Sculpture at Leeds University (1991-93) and Research Fellow in Sculpture at Manchester Metropolitan University (1993) and received a fine art award to work at the British School in Rome (1997). Allington came to prominence in the early 1980s when his work was included in influential group exhibitions such as 'Objects and Sculpture' at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (1981) and 'The Sculpture Show' at the Hayward Gallery (1983). Since then he has exhibited widely in America, Japan and throughout Europe.

The ancient cultures of Greece and Rome have held a long-standing interest for Allington. References to architectural detail, collectors' artefacts and methods of their display, placement and social context play their part in his work. His early sculptures were realised in a variety of materials and found objects, but copper and bronze, sometimes combined with other elements such as photographs, have found their way into his repertoire, which hints at the discovery of another world. 'Gazing at dislocated fragments in museums,' he observed early in his career, 'we can catch a glimpse of another way of living which was orgiastic and physical, even bestial. What we need now is a new understanding of what was lost then.'

Drawing has always been important to him. He collects volumes of ledgers, once used by companies for their financial records. Most are leather-bound and on extremely high quality paper. The entries, some faded, are in neat and formal manuscript. Allington draws over the rows of figures and texts, which add a layer of their own history to his ideas for sculpture or sculptural diagrams.

Edward Allington lives and works in London and teaches at the Slade School of Fine Art, University of London.