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 science. He takes inspiration for his designs from iconic natural forms, combining a fascination with mathematical formulae and the pioneering spirit of the British engineer to create a synergy between science, art, and technology. 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 blog.
the birthplace of square wave
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.
World Renowned Work
Outside of the innate impressiveness of Ivan Black’s work, he is also recognised by a bouquet of world renowned institutions, museums and companies. Soon after we began selling Square Wave we were contacted by two of the most important modern art museums in the word, the MoMA and MoCA in New York in Los Angeles, eventually going on to sell Square Wave at Nordstrom – clearly they saw something fascinating in Ivan’s design for Square Wave. Ivan has also presented his artworks at and done commissions for Adobe, the Nobu Hotel in London, the Peggy Guggenheim Museum and countless other highly reputed organisations.
ABOUT IVAN BLACK
Ivan was born in London in the early ’70s. As a child, he was immediately interested in geometry, patterns, and problem-solving. His body of work 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, Flowers East, Sculpture by the Sea Australia, Interart Sculpture Park Netherlands, Palmyra Sculpture Centre Mallorca, Kinetica museum and the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden.
