Bryan Kneale was born on the Isle of Man in 1930 and much of his work has been inspired by his childhood. He remains alive to the Norse and Celtic traditions of the island in his work as well as its mythology and cultural inheritance. Nikessen (a Norwegian name) refers to a bottomless pool and this highly polished sculpture expertly engineered to hover just above the ground offers the viewer just that. Kneale cites the memory of such a pool on the family farm as being an entrance to the underworld right on his doorstep. Kneale has said: Even in my most abstract work I’ve always searched for a persona in order to feel the work has a life of its own and Andrew Lambirth writes of his ‘wandering around the Isle of Man in his youth and seeing a piece of metal sticking up out of the ground. It was the physical presence that struck him…recognizing the evocative power of the fragment.’ For Kneale making sculpture is a process of self-discovery. His innate fear of repetition means that once a form becomes familiar it is immediately discarded.

The first abstract sculptor to be elected to the R.A, he very quickly went on to mount 'British Sculptors', the seminal exhibition of Modern British Sculpture at the Royal Academy in 1972. An exhibition of the work of twenty-four sculptors working in the UK at the time, it has since been described as the most groundbreaking exhibition of contemporary sculpture held in Britain. He also curated the Jubilee exhibition of British Sculpture in Battersea Park in 1977. Bryan Kneale's career as a teacher began at the Royal College of Art in 1952, becoming Head of Sculpture in 1985 and Professor of Drawing in 1990. Kneale has exhibited widely both within the UK and internationally and his work can be found in many prestigious public collections including the Tate Collection; The British Museum; The Natural History Museum, London; The Arts Council of Great Britain; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paolo, Brazil and the National Gallery of New Zealand. To quote Bryan Kneale; "(the point of making sculpture) is to try and discover in some way the meaning of your own life, to clarify in your own mind those capabilities, or abilities, to see things achieve an existence independent of yourself". Pangolin London is pleased to represent Bryan Kneale.