Padraig Tarrant was born into a family of craftsman
and artisans in Ireland in 1954. Since the Middle Ages his family members were
Guilded Craftsman in all horse related trades; blacksmiths, coach builders and
harness makers.
Padraig began an Artisan Apprenticeship at 17 with a
blacksmith shop in County Cork and studied at night at Crawford Technical School
in welding and steel fabrication.
He went to London and qualified as a craftsman with
the City and Guilds of London.
Padraig studied (and graduated in) Engineering Science
and Metallurgy at Paddington College in London 1976-1979.
He has worked in the New York area since 1986 in the
ornamental metal business. He has been creating monumental staircases and
architectural metal work as features in prestigious New York City buildings. He
crafts the metals and rolls steel into various shapes in a large modern workshop
just outside of Manhattan.
Padraig Tarrant is an inventor with a number of
patents and is a member of Mensa. He currently resides in the New York Metro
area.
Artist's
Statement:My
work in metals connects the elemental to the organic. My intimate knowledge of
the properties of the metals I work in gives me a fluency in the dialogue
between earth elements and living organisms.
My
work is in a number of areas; individual pieces with very comforting and organic
shapes and subtleties that lend themselves to easy interpretation and
appreciation.
My
site-specific work initiates a dialogue between the work and the topography (or
architecture) and often has a fourth dimension subtext that puts it in the
timeline of the setting.
Some
pieces are designed to provoke questions; other pieces are designed simply to
enjoy and to explore the shapes and images. Padraig Tarrant, April,
2003
