Andy Bannister is the pathway leader for fine art sculpture. He studied at Nottingham Polytechnic and Chelsea College of Art where he specialised in sculpture, graduating in 1992. His work was included in the BT New Contemporaries 1993-4 and featured in the influential ‘Institute of Cultural Anxiety’ exhibition at the ICA in 1994; since then he has gone on to exhibit widely in the UK and abroad. Working in higher education since 1993, he was previously a senior lecturer in fine art at Nottingham Trent University and has worked at City and Guilds of London Art School since 2002.
Employing a variety of strategies and media including drawing, photography, sculpture and sound his practice reflects a longstanding interest in the fabric and structure of built environments. Through his work he seeks to represent or reimagine elements of urban spaces that have been forgotten, overlooked or destroyed by the passage of time, neglect or conflict.
His recent works are informed by archival research into the climbing frames and play structures that furnished the public recreation areas of British towns and cities from the 1960’s through to the 1980’s. The designs of these artefacts can be seen as reflecting the forward thinking optimism of the times in which they were created and the sprit of an era epitomised by the space race, the moon landings and colour television; they hint at a utopian future that was to be delivered by science and technology. Most of these structures have now vanished, having been superseded by newer (and arguably safer) designs, although some continue to exist as deteriorating relics of this earlier age. He sees these works as an exploration of the gradual disappearance of these objects from the urban landscape and as a meditation on their persistence both in consciousness and actuality.