Ivan Black, the Maker of Square Wave
Ivan Black has spent a good deal of his career as an artist and a skilled inventor. His creative vision is combined with an essential attachment to engineering and mathematics and that is precisely what lead us to designing and building a dynamic sculpture that also doubles as an embodiment of a mathematical sequence. This duality between being an artist and inventor is part of what makes Ivan so unique, we want to pay tribute to that uniqueness in this week’s newsletter by telling a bit of Ivan’s story. While we certainly can’t do him or his career justice in a few lines we can certainly try to underline some highlights of Ivan’s environment, origins and work!
inspiring LANDSCAPES
The wild coastline of Pembrokeshire is a place sculpted by millennia of icy winds that sweep down from Greenland and the Labrador Sea, gliding through seaside canyons and lush green fields. Waves play an equally important part in shaping the limestone speckled coastline as they crawl into every stone chasm, carving deep into the landscape.
These beautiful cliff sides and rolling fields are the birthplace of Square Wave as an idea and the home of Ivan Black’s workshop, an emporium of ideas and innovation nestled and immersed deep within the natural world. It is consequently obvious to see how so many of his sculptures are inspired by natural energy like the wind and move in ways that almost mimic nature’s inherent motion.
POETRY IN MOTION
Ivan has a gift for creating icons. Outside of the innate impressiveness of his work, he is also recognized by a bouquet of world renowned institutions, museums and companies. He has presented his artworks at and done commissions for Adobe, the Nobu Hotel in London, and the Peggy Guggenheim Museum.
ABOUT IVAN BLACK
Ivan was born in London in the early 70’s, as a child he was immediately interested in geometry, patterns and problem solving. His school of art is inspired by a very uniquely British tradition of combining the arts with other disciplines such as science and mathematics. This early fascination lead him to eventually begin designing and presenting his creations as sculptures and works of art at various museums and galleries. His work has been exhibited at galleries and sculpture parks worldwide including the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, The Cass Foundation, Sculpture by the Sea Australia, Kinetica Museum, and many more.
