EDWARDS, Laurence Thomas

1967 - ?

Laurence Thomas Edwards was born on the Suffolk/Essex border in July 1967, son of Alan George Edwards and his wife Ilse A. née Prior, who married at Colchester, Essex in 1964. Laurence was educated at Lowestoft College 1983-1984, proceeding to Canterbury College of Art, Kent, 1985-1988 gaining a B.A. in Sculpture, when his tutors included Sir Anthony Arthur Caro (1924-2013), proceeding in postgraduate studies in bronze casting and sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London 1988-1990 under Philip King (born 1934), the Professor of Sculpture, and Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005), also studying casting with Sri Lankan Master Founder, Tissa Ranasinghe (1925-2019). Among his many earlier prizes and honours was a travel grant to India, where he studied traditional casting techniques and later combined this training in traditional methods with state-of-the-art casting techniques to produce his distinctive bronze figures, which appear both mythic and contemporary. In the summer of 1990, Edwards established his first foundry and studio at the Clock House Arts, Bruisyard, Suffolk which in 1992 he moved to Yew Tree Farm, Laxfield also in Suffolk where he built his bronze foundry and established the Yew Tree Farm Studios Artistic Community which included Ronald Fuller and Moss Fuller. In 2003 he moved his studio to Butley Mills Studios creating a larger foundry and more complex studios on the edge of the beautiful Butley Creek at Orford and, with its habitat, landscape and histories developed into the main resource for his work. In 2011 he purchased new studios in a former fire station at Saxmundham, Suffolk setting up large modelling, drawing, and painting studios and in 2016 opened a new studio and large-scale foundry in Halesworth, both in Suffolk. His work attempts to do justice to the locality and its history, by peopling it with large figures that have survived the ravages of the water and the elements. Laurence exhibited at the Royal Academy and has had solo exhibitions at Chappel Galleries in Essex and the John Russell Gallery in Ipswich. In 2009 elected associate member Royal Society of British Sculptors and a Fellow in 2012. He married in 1997, artist Johanne Humphreys and lived at 26 High Street, Yoxford, Suffolk and where he installed his 'Yoxman' sculpture. The author of 'The Creek Men-A Journey' (2009).

Royal Academy Exhibits
from 447a Finchley Road, London
1989 1148 Figure of a Dragon - bronze edition of 9

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Works by This Artist