David Baldry
Slade-trained sculptor David Baldry works across a range of media — including drawing, print and photography — and has instigated and managed a number of major public art installations. Introduced early to the philosophy of Friedrich Fröbel, with its emphasis on learning through play, direct experience of nature and the interconnectedness of all things, he went on to study at Ipswich School of Art, Brighton Polytechnic and the Slade School of Fine Art in London, where he trained in sculpture under Reg Butler. Sculpture gave him a grounding in form, space and materiality, but his practice has always crossed disciplines.
After graduating he worked in Rome as a photographer before returning to England to teach at Harrow School, and later, in Suffolk, led Foundation Courses at Suffolk College and developed undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Fine and Applied Art at the University of Suffolk, where he became Head of the School of Arts. Alongside teaching he maintained a wide-ranging, rarely-exhibited practice; in recent years drawing has become central to his work, approached as a discipline of gesture, thought and image-making.
He has worked with the Arts Council of Great Britain, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and the Czech Government, and has commissioned public artworks, curated exhibitions and initiated international residencies. He is a Director of Culture Edit Suffolk (CES). In 2024, with a new studio, he began a new body of work on paper. He lives and works in Suffolk.
Artist Statement
I begin with the scruffy margins of everyday life, not in grand gestures, but in the scratches, smudges, and scuffs that cling to overlooked surfaces. These incidental marks feel less like noise than signals - faint echoes, fleeting moments, impressions upon the mundane. By re-embodying them, the work does not seek to beautify what is found, but to recognise what might otherwise slip unnoticed.
The atmosphere of my current practice has shifted from shadow into ghost. Earlier works carried an architectural weight: objects and bands glimpsed in half-light, silhouettes suggesting rhythm and restraint. Now that order has loosened - lines unravel, smears spread, and streaks erupt across the surface. What was once disciplined structure becomes spectral presence, impressions that linger, resisting obscurity.
In a time dominated by spectacle and the digital shout, I am leaning towards another register. I want to whisper, to slow the eye and the body, to invite the viewer to linger over the seemingly mute or insignificant, to notice what might otherwise be lost.