Russell A. Beard MFAis ceramic artist, broadcaster and celebrant with Scottish humanist charity A Quiet Revolution. His deeply ecological artwork combines ceramics, sculpture & ceremony and is academically rooted in contemporary physical theory, earth science and the environmental humanities.
Arising from the social, political and environmental uncertainty of the 'Anthropocene' Beard's artistic practice explores themes of deep time and the cyclical nature of materiality from that still point at which beauty and order emerge amid the ongoing oscillations between the dissipative forces of entropy and decay and the creative, generative force of life’s perpetual becoming.
Beard works primarily with ceramics, intaglio etching and sculptural assemblage that incorporate salvaged materials and found objects in various states of decomposition. His work is four dimensional - imbued with a dark materiality and vibrant temporality as expressed in spontaneous physical and chemical processes that deeply resonate with the seismic societal and ecological transformations currently underway.
With a background in Ecology and Landscape design Russell spent a formative few years teaching in Asia and the Americas before returning to Edinburgh to study film and going on to spend ten years working with a global news network making multiple award-winning environmental documentaries from the frontlines of climate change.
In 2015 Beard enrolled atEdinburgh College of Art and graduated in 2017 with an MFA Art, Space & Nature (with distinction) and after a year as artist in residence was selected for the prestigious Robert Callender International Residency for Young Artists.
He has since completed residencies in Akita, Northern Japan and various locations around Scotland and maintains creative partnerships with Lateral Lab in association with Zerodaté Japan and the UK Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World.
Just before the pandemic Russell received generous project development grant from Creative Scotland for a project that resulted in permanent sculptural installation at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre Explorers Garden entitled Cultivating the Art of Noticing