VENUE 14 | Old Men's Club

Joint. 

Don't be fooled by the title of the show.

David? He lives and breathes his art. The pencil would have to be prized out of his cold dead hand to stop him making. 

Robert? He treats the creation of every one of his artworks as an affront to his natural indolence. 

Together they’ve produced ‘ Joint ‘ for this year’s Pittenweem Arts Festival.

David Mach

David Mach is one of the UK’s most successful and respected artists, known for his dynamic and imaginative large scale collages, sculptures and installations using diverse media, including coat hangers, matches, magazines and many other materials. The Scotsman describes his work as ‘big on gesture and big in proportion, it demands your attention and gets it’. 

Mach’s first solo exhibition was held at the Lisson Gallery, London in 1982. His international reputation was quickly established and he has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions around the world including London, New York, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Hakone, Tel Aviv and Warsaw. Public commissions include the tumbling telephone boxes, “Out of Order” in Kingston, “Train” in Darlington; “Big Heids”, visible from the M8 between Glasgow and Edinburgh; “It Takes Two”, sited North of Paris and in Marseille, Likeness Guaranteed commissioned by McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, and most recently, “Giants” in Vinadio, Italy and “Phantom”, commissioned by Morrisons supermarket for the Promenade in Kirkcaldy, Fife.

Born in 1956 in Fife, David Mach attended Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art where he chose to specialise in sculpture because he thought it was the most demanding, intellectually and physically. He has won numerous awards, and in 1988 he was nominated for the Turner Prize. Four years later, he won Glasgow’s Lord Provost Prize. He became a Royal Academician in 1998. In 2000 he was appointed Professor of Sculpture at the Royal Academy Schools, London. 

He received an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Dundee in 2002. In 2003 his “Arm’s Length” sculpture of a woman made in coat hangers won The Jack Goldhill Award for sculpture at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. In 2004 he was elected an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy and the same year, the University of Dundee appointed him Professor of Inspiration and Discovery. From 2006-2010 he became a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery.

Robert Mach

Robert studied Art at Kirkland High School - a largely an overlooked subject as there were only two in the class! After studying Philosophy and English at Edinburgh University, Robert had a short stint in Systems Analysis before popping into B&Q to buy a piece of wood and ended up staying there for several years, eventually becoming a garden centre manager with the firm. 

During all this time he also made artworks for his brother David. The opportunities to help David grew and he left B&Q to work on his projects more fully. In 2009, he worked with David on a large installation, ‘Precious Light’, and at ths time he also started to make more of his own artwork and had his first solo show. Over the last 10 years, Robert has juggled his own work as well as key collaborations with David.

Robert tries to make art from the ordinary commonplace world he sees and experiences everyday. It’s where he lives, and his work is generated by the that world. It’s the world of Tesco, of Home Bargains, Amazon and charity shops and a place he has difficulty traversing without constantly thinking, ‘what can I make out of that’.