Info — Seòras Rae

Seòras Rae, British Sculptor
Selected Work, Publication,
Instagram, Græd, Exhibitions.

Seòras Rae
Lives and works in Glasgow, UK
b. 1990

Seòras Rae's sculptures weave multiple narratives inspired by current news, historical events, philosophy, and symbology. Living and working in Glasgow, Scotland, Rae predominantly creates sculptural reliefs using local timber, clay, or bronze.

His works focus on repositioning sculptural allegory for a presumed Western secular audience. As noted by the artist, the works are emblematic of the separation of church and state and represent a re-entry into the historical lineage of the human form as a tool for storytelling.

Seòras—previously and also known as George Rae—studied in London (UK) and Cluj-Napoca (Romania), later living and working in Istanbul, Milan, and Barcelona.
Throughout his twenties, (George) Rae’s work focused on social sculpture, performance, and poetry. The work he produced engaged formally with new cultures and environments and, in some ways, echoed the naivety and enthusiasm expressed by Blake in The Tyger or Alÿs’s When Faith Moves Mountains.

Works such as Metamorphis, produced for TAP Southend (UK), were durational performances in which a sculpture was created or named and then travelled with over great distances, its journey documented. The purpose of these works was to highlight the evolution of movement from the Industrial Revolution to the then-present post-internet era. Themes of dispersion (Price 2007) and the representation of form through mechanical replication (Dom Sylvester Houédard, 1969) formed a critical axis through which the work became poetic and tied more closely to Western literary epistemology.

Rae claims that “sculpture is a connection between the past and the future through which an audience can experience and speculate as to what role they play in the tapestry of actions and decision-making moving forward.” The Central Stone at the Summit of an Arch (2015) is representative of Rae's poetic, gestural invitation to the viewer to consider their social position and context in relation to the work. Created for a group show in Maslak, Istanbul, the piece asks the audience to critique how they feel about the redevelopment of the area they are standing in.

Conceived in response to new media’s ability to fuel division in multicultural societies, Rae created a series of three mezzo-basso reliefs and six ink drawings telling the story of the War in Yugoslavia. Formally inspired by the door panels of St. John’s Baptistry in Florence, the series highlights the road of manipulation pursued by a handful of power-hungry men and the consequences of rising ultranationalism.

Recent works have been inspired by the Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht anthology Calvin and Luther: The Continuing Relationship, Steven Sherrill’s The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, and Brian Catling’s The Vorrh. These works sketch scenes far greater than what is sculpturally accessible to Rae in his current production capacity and form a critical axis of “ethnographic fantasy” in his work.
The short story The Artist and the Million depicts two brothers clearing a house of artifacts that tether it to both past and future, allowing the protagonists to explore the interplay between heritage, identity, and contemporary culture. By merging ethnographic documentation—exploring cultural symbols, myths, and traditions—with fantastical reimaginings, the story aims to illuminate cultural memory while reframing it through imaginative reinterpretation.

More recently, Seòras has shaped his subjects to represent sexual emancipation, which may be interpreted personally as emancipation from shame and embarrassment. He sets his subjects within war-scapes—looking forward, unaware of how precarious their hard-won freedoms are. Man with Ibex (2025) is an allegorical relief symbolizing civil rights prevailing over the vanity and complacency that threaten them, reminding viewers of the enduring power of inner strength and historical legacy.

The Ibex, as represented in illuminations and medieval manuscript tradition, appears in Isidore (following Pliny), typically shown as a real-world ibex with its head down and horns digging into the ground. Sometimes it is pursued by a solitary dog, lion, or hunters and appears poised to leap from a cliff’s edge.

Behind the two figures is the burning bridge on the Kerch Strait connecting Russia to Crimea. On Saturday, 8 October 2022, an explosion on this bridge demolished sections of its road and railway tracks. The burning bridge is both a literal and metaphorical political analogy for the ongoing battle between libertarianism and authoritarianism—visible in the contemporary conflict between Russia and Ukraine and in the pro-fascist repeals of human rights occurring across Europe today.

The work positions us—a presumed Western secular audience—in a moment of realization: although we race at great height toward emancipated freedoms and potential catastrophe, our horns, should we choose to use them, will break our fall.

Seòras trained in the practices of lost-wax casting and cesello under the master Mario Conti at Fonderia Battaglia in Milan, Italy. He was also a studio assistant to Alison Wilding and Susan Hiller and completed an MA in Contemporary Art Practice 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 integral to Rae’s development as an artist and helped facilitate his critical and cultural understanding of architecture, illustration, philosophy, pop culture, and non-Western queer identity.

Rae was the founder of The Public Learning Workshop, a Scottish charity focused on increasing access to education through broadcasting.

Exhibitions, Professional Experience & Education

2025 ‘Bailey’ Commission
‘Convivium Coin’ Collab with Studio Lueder London Fashion Week

2024 Political Agency In Contemporary Art Symposium Spit Gallery London
Untimely meditations Radio Circolo Berlin
The Aimes Saudi Arabia

2022 ResonanceFM
Collaboration with DJ Crafton
Collaboration with Violence Grass Band

2020 Musical Score for Entanglement; the Game Part 1
Collab with Studio Lueder London Fashion Week

2019 Nu-Jazz, Palermo

2018 L￡TZ BELIEVE, Royal College of Art
Guesting on Reverie NTS Radio London
Chisello at London Bronze

2017 WIP, Royal college of Art
Guesting on Reverie NTS Radio London
Live recording for MCPS Studios Istanbul

2016 Assistant to Alison Wilding
Collaboration with AB Foundry &Rathbone Square
Not Knowing the Line, Atelier WAN, AND Space
Navid polytickle action, Peckham Rye

2015 Assistant to Susan Hiller
Putting Out a Gormley, Belenden road, London
Makers Space WAN, Maslak AutoSenayi, Istanbul
Commission for Hotel 81 Bodrum, Turkey

2014 Possibly Blue, site specific intervention, Milano
Kinetic space WAN: design week sbodio 32 Milano
Centre of Remote Possibility, Matts Gallery
Bricks installation, Parco Nationale Camogli Italy
The time is Faringdon Factory London
The time is Arcadia Missa Gallery London

2013 Artist residency at Fabrica del Valpore Milano
TAP Southend Onsite group show
Metamorphosis site specific installation
Internship at Matts Gallery London
Assistant to Guiseppe Penone
Assistant to Mike Nelson
Apprentice to Mario Conti

Education

2018 MA Art in the Public Sphere, Royal College of Art

2012 BA Fine Art, Central St Martins (continued)

2011 Erazmus Classical Sculpture, Cluj Napoca University

2010 BA Fine Art, Byam Shaw School of Art

2009 Art Foundation , Wimbledon College of Art

Portrait by Sean Campbell 2024