Tony Heaton
Bio
Tony Heaton is an artist working across multiple mediums, but with a focus on sculpture. He mostly creates visual art, however he dabbles in performance art as well. Tony Heaton self-identifies as a disabled person and many of his pieces, as well as the ideas that led to them and the materials used to create them, are informed by disability. In addition to creating art, Heaton also founded a project called National Disability Arts Collection and Archive or NDACA for short. Heaton has earned accolades including honorary Doctor of Letters degrees from two separate universities and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Poole Arts Council. Notably, Heaton was knighted as an officer of the British Empire during the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours for his contributions to the arts and to the disability arts movement.
(All information from Tony Heaton's website)
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Image Descriptions
"Father & Child" Description: In the center of the image is the sculpture. The sculpture rests atop three stacked, circular, cement discs. Beneath the stone discs are small pebbles. Behind the sculpture are green bushes and flowers. "Father & Child" is a sculpture made of white stone. The bottom portion of the sculpture has been left rough, presumably in the condition the artist received the stone in. The top half of the sculpture features two figures emerging from the stone. The artist only sculpted the arms and head of the larger figure out of the stone. The larger figures arms wrap aroung the smaller figure . The smaller figure has its knees bent tight into its chest. The smaller figures hands and arms rest again the larger figure's chest.
"Great Britain from a Wheelchair" Description: This sculpture is made from two deconstructed, flattened wheelchairs. The sculpture is displayed against a solid white wall. At the very top of the sculpture are two wheelchair handles and two footrests. Beneath this is a strip of cloth from the seat and then in the middle of the sculpture is a small wheel with an even smaller wheel just to the left. Below this middle point are some of the structural bars of the wheelchair. Attached to these elements is a larger wheel with two smaller wheels on either side. Jutting out from behind the large wheel is a handlebar, a piece of the cloth seat/backing, and a footrest.The sculpture is thinner at the top and wider at the bottom. It is the same shape as the map of Great Britain.
"White on White" Description: "White on White" features off-white fabric gloves affixed to a solid white background. The gloves are positioned to make different symbols in British Sign Language. Each glove has ribbing at the wrist. There are two rows of gloves. The top row contains ten gloves arranged into five dyads. The bottom row contains seven gloves. The two pairs of gloves on the left side of the image are arranged in dyads, as are the gloves furthest to the right. The glove that is second from the left has no pair.