Steve Hurst British, b. 1932

Steve Hurst was born in Cairo in 1932. Evacuated from Egypt on the outbreak of war, he was educated in England. Then, following National Service in Malaya, he worked in the engineering industry. These two aspects of his life retain a strong presence in his work.

Hurst’s work, cast, fabricated, drawn or written, often actively questions common opinion and official history and contrasts it with his own personal experience. Hurst’s enigmatic sculptures, collages and assemblages that result from these combined interests are instantly recognisable in form yet imbued with a poignant sense of the fragments of human life left behind after futile combat or disaster.

In 1982, Hurst and his wife, Sylvie, set up a foundry to cast sculpture in Oxfordshire and began a long and happy association with Pangolin Editions. Hurst then began working as a foundry consultant and training adviser to NGOs in developing countries. While working in Uganda and Eastern Sudan, he took a part-time MA in colonial and post-colonial history and has since published a number of military history books.

Steve Hurst’s sculptures ask difficult and poignant questions about accountability and the true human cost of war. In addition, Hurst’s lifelong artistic exploration of the subject speaks not only of the artist’s enduring interest but of the ever-evolving and enduring nature of war itself.