Dr David Paton

Qualifications

Year	Qualification	Awarding body
2022	PGCHE	Falmouth University
2019	First Aid Certification
2015	PhD: The Quarry as Sculpture: The Place of Making, Dept of Geography	University of Exeter
2007	MA Contemporary Visual Art - Distinction	University College Falmouth
1992	BA Fine Art/ Sculpture - First Class	University of Sunderland

Research interests and expertise

Radical Acts of Carving

Radical Acts of Carving is positioned as an acknowledgement of the ways in which working stone has a unique place in the evolution of human society and culture. The aim of this research is to identify the ways in which acts of working stone have given rise to radical repositionings in our sense of place and community. Where, as archaeologists O’Connor and Cooney highlight, our deep-time co-narrative with stone objects -- as vessels of a collective geologic memory -- ‘are not only actively harnessed in these encounters but are also the very stuff from which social relations are derived, perceived and thought through’ (2009: xxii). 

O’Connor, B. and Cooney, G. (2009). Introduction: Materialitas and the significance of stone. in Eds. O’Connor, B. Cooney, G and Chapman, J. Materialitas : Working Stone, Carving Identity. Oxford ;: Oxbow Books.

 

Research Objectives:

The three strands of the research are:

1.    Radical Acts of Carving in Trenoweth Quarry – a practice based multi-disciplinary and pedagogical research project. Here a reimagining of a Cornish narrative will be investigated, and worked towards a live event and the carving of a large frieze on the quarry face at Trenoweth.
2.    Communities of Radical Carving – ethnographic/ auto-ethnographic research conducted within communities of stone workers around the world, where the objective is to construct a hybridized taxonomy of social and geological stone working practices that have radical socio-political, cultural and economic resonance. 
3.    Historical Acts of Radical Carving – an overview of ways in which stone-working has been enrolled in socio-political, cultural and economic change.

 

Research Methodologies:

Radical Acts of Carving will draw on practices of carving, sculpture, industrial crafts, expanded drawing, music, folk-art, performance, anthropology, archaeology and geography, and operate within the framework of practice-based and practice-led research methods. Radical Acts of Carving will also attend to Research Informed Teaching, and aims to include a range of undergraduate and post-graduate engagement.

 

Published work: 

Paton D A, 2020, Place-crafting at the edge of everywhere, in eds. Edensor, T et al, The Routledge book of Place, Routledge, London, UK.


Paton D A, 2015, Stitch-Split: the breath of the geologic, Architecture and Culture, 3(3): 267-270.

Paton D A and Desilvey C, 2014, Growing granite: the recombinant geologies of sludge in Hallam E and Ingold T, Making and growing: anthropological studies of organisms and artefacts, Ashgate, London, UK.

Paton D A, 2013, The quarry as sculpture: the place of making, Environment and Planning A 45(5): 1070 – 1086.


Ansell J M and Paton D A, 2009, TEND, RANE & Festerman Press.

 

Conferences, fellowships, presentations and research projects: 

2018/ 19 - South West Creative Technology Network (SWCTN): Immersion Fellow

2018 - Repair Acts - research participant/ conference presentations.


2017/18 - Tracing Granite - 5 day field-trip for Groundwork/ FEAST.


2016 - The Psychic Life of Granite - Seminar, Uni of Exeter (CEAH), National Trust & AHRC, Godolphin House, Cornwall.


2016 - Cornwall Workshop - Kestle Barton, Cornwall – presentation and participant.


2016 - Rock/ Body - Participant in AHRC research network, Uni of Exeter.


2016 - RGS/IBG Session organiser (with Dr Rose Ferraby) - Cultural Geologies: Working with stone in the geological turn. Social and Cultural Geography Research Group.

2016 - AHRC Cultural Engagement Fellow - National Trust/ University of Exeter collaborative research project. ‘Creative interpretation of granite building conservation and restoration methods at Godolphin House, Cornwall’.

2015 - RGS/IBG, Attentive Geographies, Performance-paper and film showing.

2015 - Cornwall Workshop, Kestle Barton, Cornwall – presentation and participant.

2015 - Visuality, Materiality and Mining – invited speaker, University of Brighton.


2014 - Industries of Architecture – presentation of film and paper. Architectural Humanities 
Research Association, Newcastle University.

2014 - Cornubian Arts and Science Trust, Helston, Cornwall – presentation of research.

2014 - Cornwall Workshop – presentation/ participant. Kestle Barton, Cornwall.

2014 - TATE Seminar – (21 June), Materials, Movements, Encounters: Modernist art networks 
and St Ives – live film intervention and field trip presentation.

2013 - TATE Research – Developmental Seminar, (20-21 May), Barbara Hepworth Studios and 
Sculpture Garden, St Ives – seminar participant and presentation on stone working.

2011 - Small is Beautiful – Invited speaker, University of Exeter.

2012 - Tilted Matter – performance-lecture/ film projections, Trenoweth Quarry, Cornwall.

2012/2013 - CAZ/ Rock Jam – seminars, conference papers and projects delivered as part of 
Falmouth University/ CAZ (Cornwall Autonomous Zone) landscape research program.

2010 - RGS/IBG, What are Surfaces? - film presentation and paper. 


2010 - Experimenting with Geography – week-long funded research seminar held at Edinburgh 
University, led by Michael Gallagher, Hayden Lorimer and Eric Laurier.

Selected Commissions, Grants and Residencies: 

2022 - Solomon Browne/ Union Star Memorial - Granite Sculpture

2020-2021 - Leach 100: Mythical Taxonomies - commissioned artist.

2020 - SWCTN Lessons from Now Commission


2017/18 - La Vallée des Saints - St Piran. Public granite carving, UK & France.

2018 - Cultivator - grant for granite masonry training equipment.
2017 - Vibrant Lives - National Trust audio-visual interpretation, Godolphin House.

2008 – Arbor, private sculpture commissions for Trewidden House, Penzance, Cornwall.

2007/8 – TEND, artist-led ACE funded residency at Trewidden Garden, Cornwall.


2008 – Part of our daily lives, Sculpture Commission for St Austell Clay Trails.
2007 TEND - A year long artist-led and ACE funded residency at Trewidden Garden, Newlyn.

2006 – Provisional Newlyn, Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance.


2005/6 – R&D for Penzance redevelopment programme.


2005 – ROOMERS Lead Artist, – ACE & Regional Development funding, Sunderland. 2002 – 2005 – West Park residency, parkland regeneration scheme, Darlington.

2002-2005 - WEST PARK, three year arts project
.

1997 - 2000 - Herrington Sculpture Residency, Sunderland Council

1993-2020 – Private commissions and memorials.


 

Selected Exhibitions: 


2018 - Form and Formality, Breeze Art and Makers Fair - group show, Trereife House, Cornwall

2017 - The Psychic Life of Granite - sculptures at Ellspeth Bray Gallery, Sussex.

2016 - Rock/ Body Streatham Campus, U of E - performance and film showing.


2016 - Godolphin House - AHRC research outputs.

2015 - Reverse!Pugin curated by Sean Lynch, Lismore Castle Arts.


2013 - Transition 10, Land Matters, Newlyn Art Gallery.


2005 - ROOMERS, Group Show. Sunderland.


2004 - It’s About Time - Solo Show, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art