Potteries Talent Rob Pointon # ammend
Rob Pointon is a local artist, working in Burslem, who is making quite a name for himself in the art world.
In 2008 he undertook a 48 hour painting marathon to raise money for the Meningitis Research Foundation, an illness from which his mother suffered but from which she happily recovered. The MRF benefitted to the tune of 80% of the £3,000 raised while The Burslem Arts Festival Fund also benefitted with the funds left from the Rob`s lengthy stint in which he turned portraits around at a `jaw-dropping` rate of one every 90 minutes.
During the marathon, Local Heroes on Canvas, some of the images he committed to canvas were; World Cup winner, Gordon Banks, local celebrity, TV presenter Nick Hancock and the Potteries legend that is DJ and radio presenter Sam Plank as well as his local MP Joan Whalley. Unsurprisingly it was the Gordon Banks painting which earned the top price, £300, during the auction at the Potteries` Museum, Hanley, on 28th June 2008.
Rob, who went to Blythe Bridge High School, where he says his Art teacher, Geoff Leese was an early inspiration to him, graduated from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, with a BA (Hons) First Class in Fine Art. He works largely in oil paint and has a special interest in illusion of space which he employs to depict everyday scenes that surround us. Despite that being his speciality Rob has also produced an original strip-cartoon for a Premier League football club.
Multi-talented Rob is also a sculptor and has produced a 2 meter high steel sculpture, based on a potter at his wheel, as the centrepiece of a £25,000 regeneration carried out in Birches Head by the Staffordshire Housing Association. But Rob is appreciated in places much further afield than his Potteries base.
It could be said that Rob has `friends` in high places, certainly lovers of his work, because he has a drawing in the personal archive of HRH Prince of Wales and another in the private collection of the Duchess of Devonshire at Chatsworth.
Rob Pointon is truly a local artist because he lives and works in Burslem where he is a tenant in one of the Live/Work apartments in Queen Street where a £1.6 million regeneration scheme has breathed new life into previously run down Victorian terraced houses.
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