About Us
A4A Art for Architecture, and John McKenna Sculpture have extensive working experience and practical design sense to undertake large-scale public art projects drawing on over twenty years of sculpture experience.
We work with a variety of media, including large bronze sculpture cast here at our own foundry the A4A Art bronze foundry, and fabricate stainless steel structures at our studio workshop in Turnberry, near Girvan, Ayrshire. In the past besides working in bronze and steel we have created art as glazed brick architectural reliefs, metalwork fabrications, stone and cast stone panels. This cumulative mass of experience over the years and genuine creativity has enabled us to resolve many artworks leaving as many delighted collectors, clients and the public to enjoy our work for generations to come. We create all sorts of artworks from cast bronze portrait statues, to colossal stainless steel figures, unique bespoke structural canopies, railings, gates, way markers, one-off bollards, signposts, smaller awards and trophies.
Significant artworks of John McKenna include the ‘Colossus of Brownhills’ a 46 foot/13m high fabricated stainless steel figure of a miner for the Staffordshire town of Brownhills. Another large artwork of 7m x 7m fabricated in sheet bronze was made as the main artwork in the Grand Lobby area of the trans-Atlantic Cunard liner, the Queen Mary 2 and another for the Queen Victoria liner. One of his most significant earlier career enhancing artworks was a life-size bronze sculpture group of Jersey Cattle for the capital city of Jersey, in the Channel Islands. During this project John had the great honour and unique opportunity of showing his work in progress cattle sculpture to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh. Back home in Scotland John has created bronze statues, several of them in Glasgow, including the Jock Stein and Billy McNeill statues at the Celtic FC Park Head stadium and the Auchengeich mining memorial, at Moodiesburn. Currently John is working on a pair of colossal figures in fabricated stainless steel for Port Glasgow alongside a statue of the legendary Scottish flyweight boxing champion, Benny Lynch.
Artist’s statement
I work in a variety of scales, colossal, heroic, domestic, on public and private commissions, producing my own designs or rising readily to the challenge of a client’s design brief. My smaller works using the human form seek to achieve balance, sensitivity and quietude for the observer to contemplate, aiming to pacify the senses in an increasingly demanding social environment. Originally I was trained in a strict traditional academic figurative discipline under the auspices of the great sculptor Dame Elizabeth Frink and always prefer to create sculpture modelled with observed naturalism and empathy with the subject, whilst imbuing dynamic creativity.
I have extensive working experience and practical design sense to undertake large-scale public art projects drawing on over twenty years of sculpture experience. I work with a variety of media, including large cast bronzes and stainless steel structures, delivering artwork projects on time and within their budgets, encompassing public consultation and addressing appropriate health, safety and durability concerns. This cumulative mass of experience and genuine creativity has enabled me over the years to resolve many artworks leaving as many delighted collectors, clients and the public to enjoy my work for generations to come.
John McKenna sculptor
