John Sims sculptor and stone carver.

Born in Canterbury, Kent in 1952. John left school at sixteen to study graphic design and illustration at Folkestone School of Art. Three years later he moved to London to work as a freelance illustrator on a series of children's books. This led to various jobs as a graphic designer. In the late 70’s he moved to the Arabian Gulf to work as an art director, first Kuwait then Qatar and Bahrain. In 1986 he returned to England. Frustrated by a lack of creative freedom he increased his output of personal images that reflected his time in Arabia and his interest in natural history and the landscape of Kent.

In January 2000 John enrolled on a stone carving evening class, he was immediately hooked on the medium and the process of carving. Increasingly his week began to revolve around this one evening. John had always been aware of art history, using and referring to artists of the past in his illustration and advertising work. Now the re-discovery of Eric Gill as not only a designer of typeface's and wood engraver, but as a sculptor, was a revelation. This interest in Gill and stone carving led back to an appreciation of Gothic, Renaissance and Archaic sculpture and forward to the direct carving of Brancusi, Modigliani, Gaudier-Brzeska, Epstein, Moore and Hepworth.

By 2002 John was spending so much time thinking about sculpture that he decided to study full time. He felt the need to go beyond carving to experience other mediums and ideas. An element of luck intervened, one of the few BA courses left in England that still had an ethic of studio practice based on drawing from the life model was still running at Canterbury Christ Church University. John enrolled on the sculpture course run by the Czech sculptor Karel Zuvak. He continued to carve but experimented with modelling in clay and plaster and construction in wood and stone. An art department trip to Athens confirmed in his mind that he must continue working in stone.

His current work is predominantly carving in stone, Lepine, Caen and Portland. Often reworking small architectural blocks discarded during renovation work on the many historical buildings in and around Canterbury. He enjoys the fact that these sedimentary limestones, formed millions of years ago have also been worked by man often hundreds of years prior to him. He feels that he is part of a tradition, still using hand tools that have barely changed over the centuries.

Increasingly his carvings are inspired by European and Eastern Mythology, Cycladic figurines and Archaic Period Greek carvings and the Moderns, from Rodin to Stephen Cox. The carvings have an intentional sensuality that is evident to the eye and the hand. The work is often produced in a series over a long period of time moving back and forth from the representational to abstractions through the merging of a theme or idea from the human form to landscape.