Andy Hopper
Andy designs and creates high-end contemporary artworks. His speciality is hot forging and forming of stainless steel and bronze.
Andy has his earliest memories of his fascination with metal started at around the age of 4 years old when he asked his mother on the way the school to go into the industrial ball bearing shop to buy the largest one possible. Transfixed with the shiny metal objects, the relationship with the material was crystal clear and his fate was sealed.
Process fascinates me. The movement and manipulation of hot metal becomes poetry when approached correctly. I use an armoury of equipment to heat and manipulate this very stubborn material, Metal.
My deep-seated knowledge allows me to make the tools which then make the work, so I engage and emotionally connect with every step of the process and finished piece. I predominantly work with stainless steel and bronze as they attain a beautiful and pure finish. With the use of large industrial machinery, power hammers, hydraulic presses, forges and furnaces and a thousand other tools. I heat, cut, join, bend, forge and deform. It could be said, I reshape the metal using the physics and the very forces that the universe is bound by. This is the fascination and magnetic pull I have towards the material and the potential that it possesses. By using extreme heat and explosive force, I execute my will over the material. My work embodies my fascination with physics, which dominates my approach throughout.
Winner of the highly prestigious Tony Andy Cup 2014 awarded by The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths for the Stainless Steel and Bronze staircase handrail, The River Flows. The Globe Theatre Gates in London also won this Award in 1995. Andy is an International Artist. He was assistant to Supreme Master Blacksmith Michael Roberts FWCB at Memphis Metal Museum, USA in April 2014. The conference was specifically focused on the forging of non-ferrous materials. He also demonstrated Forging Bronze and gave a lecture on the design and manufacture of The River Flows.
My ongoing concern is the building blocks of the universe and the miracle of creation itself.
My mission statement is to create Artworks that elevate our experience, are physically beautiful and will stand the test of time.
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