david a paton

David is a Module Leader in BA Drawing and Lecturer in Fine Art at Falmouth University. He is an artist-researcher and specialist in Cornish granite – Buckle and Twist. He is currently showing work at the British Ceramics Biennial for his collaborative project for the Leach100 Commissions for Leach Pottery. He was a recent recipient of an Immersion Research Fellowship for the South West Creative Technology Network.

He completed his PhD in 2015 at the University of Exeter in the discipline of cultural geography. The title of his doctoral thesis is The quarry as sculpture: the place of making. He is working on an extended independent research project titled Tracing Granite.

David has worked in close collaboration with Tim Marsh and Trenoweth Quarry (Penryn in Cornwall) for ten years, and continues to advocate for its importance in the future of traditional methods for working Cornish granite. He has a workspace at Trenoweth Quarry.

Tracing Granite: In search of a white cross field-trip group, Oct 4th-9th 2017, (Photo Hillside Images)

In October 2017 David led a fieldtrip-based contemporary arts project for Groundwork called Tracing granite: In search of a white cross. In search of a white cross was an intensive 5 day field-trip through the granite districts of Cornwall and Devon with a group of science and humanities academics, artists, recent graduates and students. The group explored the legacy of the dimension granite quarrying industry of the south west of England. Audio-visual and text-based documentation is available on the Groundwork website via these links:

Text: Tracing Granite

Film by Rachael Jones: Tracing Granite

Writing by Patrick Langley: In search of a white cross

David continues to work on privately commissioned architectural and sculptural granite projects.