Nick Barberton

​

Elements: wood metal

​

Born near Cape Town in 1946, Nick attended Johannesburg College of Art following school and Military service in The South African Navy.
He gained a diploma in Industrial Design and started work as a Designer and Draftsman for a firm making Wireware and point of sales display items but soon started working for himself making wooden furniture.

 

He then moved to France with his family and then on to the Netherlands where he found work
building traditional Dutch Sailing Barges. In 1978 they moved to Christchurch in Dorset to build yachts but he was unable to get a work permit. Once he'd obtained the permit, he took a temporary job as a Craft teacher followed by part time work as a technician and then as an
Occupational therapist which was when he started working in wood again. The Stations
of the Cross at Sarum St Martins1983-84. From 1987 he was a full time self employed woodworker making furniture and undertaking carvings to commission, turning wooden bowls for craft shops and Galleries.
His work is seen in several churches mainly in Hampshire - Winchester Cathedral, a garden seat at Sculpture at Goodwood and the gates at Artsway.

He took part in Chelsea Craft Fair 1999 to 2005 and Origin 2006-07 showing long carved vessels and was selected by the Crafts Council in 1999. He has exhibited at The Crafts Council, Scottish Gallery, Oxford Gallery, New Ashgate Gallery, Artsway, Rufford, Craft Study Centre and other galleries.

 

Nick has three pieces in the Handling Trail for the blind and partially sighted at Manchester City Art Gallery. He is a wood advisor for The Craft
Study Centre.  He was an Artist in residence at Schovenhorst in the Netherlands for the ‘Boom en Beeld’ wood carving festival in 2003 and also
resident at the Jam Factory in Adelaide in 2007 where he developed the ‘Splash' stool.