Tim Sandys-Renton MRSS
Senior Lecturer
About
BA Hons Fine Art, Exeter
MA Fine Art, Royal College of Art
Tim is Level 6 (3rd year) coordinator and teaches across the University’s undergraduate programmes. His specialist area is sculpture and his research includes constructed mixed media works and artist studio provision in the region.
Academic Roles:
- Teaching across contextual and studio modules
- Admissions Tutor
- Level 6 Coordinator
Specialist Areas:
- Sculpture
- Installation
- Digital Video
- Critical and Contextual Study
Weblinks:
Professional
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2016 Art Residency at Cyprus Summer Studios, Lemba, Paphos, and exhibition at the Cornaro Institute, Larnaca
2014 Art Residency at Cyprus Summer Studios, Lemba, Paphos.
2010 Artel exhibition: Blakes’ Heaven, Guildhall Chichester.
2009 Artel Art Trail: series of pinhole camera self portraits, each taking 90 minutes.
2008 Artel Exhibition: Transept Traverse, Chichester Cathedral; 900 minute pinhole camera self portrait.
2008 ‘Intervention’ Exhibition, Worthing Museum & Art Gallery. Work responding to work in collection (by Frederick Sandys):.
2008 ‘Drawing on Research’ Otter Gallery, University of Chichester. Exploration and examination of practice as research and the boundaries of drawing
2007 ‘One night affair’, digital video ‘running man’ shown at ICA gallery, London.
2006 ‘Testbed’, solo exhibition in Otter Gallery, University of Chichester.
2007-2015 Voluntary Director and Company Secretary of Unity Arts Trust C.I.C, Chichester (Community Interest Company number: 6256028) www.unityartstrust.org.uk. Set up and managed Unity Studios, built effective Board of Directors who now run the organisation. Fundraising and strategic development.
2006-2007 Project manager for Sculpture Commission to be sited outside artOne, University of Chichester. (Funding from Rolls Royce Motor cars, in collaboration with CDC).
2001-2006 Trustee of the ‘Chichester Open Art Exhibition’ (Chichester Art Trust).
PROFESSIONAL ROLES
2007-14 Voluntary Director and Company Secretary of Unity Arts Trust C.I.C, Chichester (Community Interest Company number: 6256028)
www.unityartstrust.org.uk. Set up and managed Unity Studios, built effective Board of Directors who now run the organisation. Fundraising and strategic development.
UAT, a member of the NFASP.
2006-07 Project manager for Sculpture Commission to be sited outside artOne, University of Chichester. (Funding from Rolls Royce Motor cars, in collaboration with CDC).
2001-06 Trustee of the ‘Chichester Open Art Exhibition’ (Chichester Art Trust).
2000-01 ‘Artists Professional Development Scheme’ Forum member, run by ‘Education Through Art’ and funded by South East Arts
1999-13 Member of the ARTEL STUDIO TRUST, Chichester.
Research
Tim’s research has been divided between sculpture and artist professional development. Between 2009 – 2014 he set up Unity Arts Trust CIC & ‘Unity Studios’ in Chichester. Developing a successful Community Interest Company with an effective governance and administration gave him a strong interest in artists’ professional development.
Since 2014 Tim has focused on the production of sculpture , using metal and mixed media to explore his interest in materiality, slowness and ‘the hand’; seeing these processes as the antithesis of the immaterial digital world which preferences screen-browsing and ‘the gaze’. His works are usually ‘combines’, constructed spontaneously out of pre-made and found elements, bringing together figurative and abstract elements into arrangements which actively engage with the gallery space and the viewer.
Works represent the self, others, and the knowing body, where their hollowness and fragmentation reinforce their artifice, reminding us of sculptural monuments and totems, and of the way that, throughout history, iconoclasm and beheadings have been used to reinforce political power and ideology. Small scale works create a heightened intensity and intimacy, indexical marks showing how each unique element has been carefully manipulated and modelled at high temperatures using Oxy-Acetylene welding.
Welded steel is at once traditional and modern, aggressive and pliant; where elements become expressionistic and characterful, in opposition to steel’s more typical industrial look. Upside-down-ness reminds us of the dynamic pull of gravity; being propped against the wall suggests a function while remaining a ‘useless object’. Minimal linear shapes seem designed and drawn, minimal colour offsets the deep black of waxed steel.
Tim is a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors.
