David Reekie

Art Brokerage: David Reekie British Glass Artist: b. 1947. David Reekie was born in the London Borough of Hackney in 1947. David Reekie discovered an early love of drawing that has remained central to his life and work for well over four decades. Distinguished by his talent with a pencil and an active perceptive faculty he was encouraged to attend art college. Reekie studied art at Stourbridge College of Art from 1967 to 1970. At Stourbridge, Reekie studied under the pioneering glass sculptor Harry Seager whose plate glass stacking pieces, were ahead of his time. He also drew inspiration from Professor Keith Cummings commonly known as the father of English cast glass. Reekie went on to study at Birmingham College of Art Education, eventually obtaining a fellowship in glass at Lincolnshire and Humberside Arts from 1975 to 1980. In 1976 Reekie was part of a group of glass artists who founded British Artist's in Glass, now the Contemporary Glass Society. This organisation was partly instrumental in bringing Reekie's work international recognition. In 1988, he was awarded a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship to research glass in architecture in the US. His work is currently shown in America by Thomas R.Riley Galleries, Cleveland, Ohio. Reekie has lectured extensively on glass sculpture and his own casting technique, in the UK Europe, US and Australia. An early enthusiast of cast glass, Reekie has developed his own distinct version of the lost wax casting method. The lost wax process can be traced back to the Romans and involves creating a wax model which is then encased in a casting material and steamed out. The piece is modelled first in wax with the base being moulded out of clay. The modelling is a gradual process that takes about two weeks. A central theme of Reekie's work is the threat that modern life poses to our individuality and to the natural world. Much of his work is Kafkaesque in its perception of the powerful, anonymous forces that try to shape us; and our ability (or lack of it) to either adapt to them or escape them. Listings wanted by Art Brokerage.