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portrait photo of senior lecturer Desmond Brett standing and looking away from camera with long brown hair and a long beard wearing a light brown jacket

Desmond Brett is a Senior Lecturer in BA (Hons) Fine Art (Sculpture). He previously worked as a Lecturer in Fine Art at York St. John University and prior to that was Programme Leader in Fine Art at Hull School of Art & Design. Desmond graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, with a BA (Hons) Fine Art (Sculpture) and an MFA in Sculpture. Currently a PhD candidate in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, he is interested in how the traditions and currency of sculpture can be expanded, interrogated and re-imagined through material-led enquiry.

Practice

My practice is driven by a preoccupation with materiality, process and a growing interest in the space of painting and its relationship to sculptural form. I am interested in how a sculpture might be made as a discreet object or intervention that evades specific recognition and exists as an allusion to events, memories, gestures and things.

I consider my practice to be predominantly abstract, site or material responsive, graphic, idiomorphic and informed by the methods of its own making. Through a process of modelling in with materials such as clay, plaster and wax, to making assemblages, I create forms that emerge as physical responses to speculative drawings. The general condition of making sculpture for me is one of improvisation and the ‘informe’ that isn’t necessarily derived from observation. Desmond’s work is available to view on his website.

Research Outputs

Senior Lecturer, BA (Hons) Fine Art Subject Leader, MA Fine Art

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