Based out of Glasgow, UK, Seòras Rae is a British sculptor and writer. His practise is dedicated to the field of public art as a site of knowledge transfer. 
His  academic interests lie at the intersection of classical art techniques, cultural narratives, and imaginative reinterpretation. I am fascinated by how traditional skills—such as casting in plaster and bronze, and creating clay forms—can be situated within contemporary art practices. Through my work, which includes the retelling of histories through allegory and cast reliefs, I explore the narrative potential of sculpture to convey complex cultural and emotional themes.

Training at a prestigious Italian foundry profoundly shaped my practice, particularly through the study of monumental Christian relief panels such as those on the Duomo in Milan and the Baptistery in Florence. These works, with their commanding scale and intricate storytelling, inspired me to investigate how such historical forms can inform contemporary artistic expressions. I am also drawn to integrating these classical traditions with interdisciplinary approaches, incorporating poetry, dark fantasy fiction, and public art to create layered, multidimensional works.

Ethnographic fantasy in sculpture forms a critical axis of my research interests. By merging ethnographic documentation—exploring cultural symbols, myths, and traditions—with fantastical reimaginings, I aim to craft works that not only preserve cultural memory but also reframe it through imaginative reinterpretation. This allows me to explore the interplay between heritage, identity, and contemporary artistic innovation.


Seòras’s practise has been developed though an academic understanding of craft, performance and the Land Art. His work has utilised a wide range of mediums from Bronze and wood to AV and Concrete.

Raes work is an exploration of storytelling and the retelling of histories both political and personal. The work is created to inform, teach and inspire. Presently his work wishes to champion accessibility of sculpture, oppose the death of craft and figuration and present the relevance of figurative study as a contination for the continual (re)mapping of human histories. 

Seò was trained in the practice of lost wax and chisello under the master Mario Conti at Fonderia Battaglia Milano IT, was the studio assistant to Alison Wilding  and Susan Hiller and completed an MA in Contemporary Art Practise at the Royal College of Art UK.  During the early stages of his career Rae was a member of a post-national art collective called WAN (we are nowhere / now here). WAN was a integral part of Rae’s development as an artist and facilitated his critical and cultural understanding of architecture, illustration, philosophy, pop and queer. 

Rae is a Gaidhlig speaker and musician, whos compositions explore ritual and community as experienced in piobaireach and lithurgy; applied  as analogue left-field music. 


Please get in touch for freelance work 
enquiries, collaborations and prints. 

seoras.rae@proton.me

Instagram

@_graed

© 2024 Seòras Rae
All rights reserved.  




Portrait by Sean Campbell 2024