Tony HeatonBorn in Preston in 1954 and taking inspiration from his father, a coppersmith who had designed and built a sailing boat from recycled timber including a teak bar-top from a demolished pub, Heaton, an admirer of the ambiguous poetry of Leonard Cohen, has described himself somewhat self-deprecatingly as a fiddler of bits. Impaired by a spinal injury at 16, he switched from a comprehensive school to a local arts college at Southport but made a decisive move in 1972 when he opted for self employment as artist, sign writer, disc jockey, record shop (punk and new wave) proprietor, progressive rock band member and painter of murals. Heaton gathered enormous expertise and self-reliance whilst appearing to drift aimlessly. In 1986 he changed direction once more when he enrolled on a visual arts degree at Lancaster University whilst earning a living as a sign-painter.
A contemporary of Andy Goldsworthy, Heaton experimented with environmental sculpture on the seemingly endless sands at Morecambe Bay where his work could be seen for 15 miles. Observing his tracks in the sand, Lancaster's head of sculpture, Paul Hatton, urged him to develop this sense of difference into a rich source of unique work. Heaton states, “A chance comment about how the marks left in the sand by my feet and crutches made my tracks immediately identifiable became the catalyst for a whole series of works relating to disability and my interaction with the environment.” Heaton exhibited a plaster cast of his feet and stick imprints, his first piece of disability art although at that time he had no knowledge of its existence nor of the emerging disability arts movement. Significant sculptures followed - many with witty punning titles, such as Wheelchair Entrance, Spring Back and Great Britain from a Wheelchair. These caught the attention of LDAF who commissioned him for Euroday '91 to construct Shaken Not Stirred, a seven-foot high pyramid of 1,680 charity collection cans which Heaton demolished theatrically with a Doc Marten boot attached to an artificial leg. The performance was repeated to great effect at the Block Telethon event in London, filmed for BBC2 and reported in the national press. He also has public art work standing in Beswick, Manchester (GreyMares), Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and at other locations.
Reviews of Heaton's work by distinguished disabled artists/critics Adam Reynolds, Allan Sutherland, Katherine Walsh and Deborah Williams have been published in DAIL and DAM magazines. Profile by Joe Bidder. For more information about Tony see his website http://www.tonyheaton.co.uk
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