As part of the brief, Zac will put forward his design ideas for a permanent public artwork piece.

To inform his design development, Zac has hosted several engagement sessions with the local community and students from Kirklees College. During this period Zac held a Photo & Sketch workshop providing a behind the scenes tour of The Arcade, Dewsbury Town Hall and the Pioneer Higher Skills Centre capturing the patterns and textures from the town to feed into his work.

Zac is a sculptor – he makes sculptures that explore the space between the digital world and a material one, both in making and context. He originally trained as a ceramicist but started exploring the use of digital modelling and other methods of making such as 3D printing. He often couples these processes with traditional materials such as clay or bronze.

Zac is based in Glasgow, but he was born in Dewsbury and completed a course in Art & Design at Batley School of Art before moving onto Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. He officially called himself an ‘artist’ when he finished his masters at the Royal College of Art in 2010 but he had been learning, making and showing since 2000.

Zac takes his inspiration from many things including music, architecture, reading, the work of other artists, technology, and mythology. Zac was really keen to do this project as he spent a key period of his life growing up in Dewsbury.

With support from Arts Council England, Zac is also mentoring Batley-based artist Karen Stansfield throughout the project.

Karen is local – she lives and works in Batley and has worked at various levels within the cultural industries for 25 years. Karen’s creative practise comprises of three elements: Artist, Maker and Workshop facilitator. She creates artworks to exhibit and sell, is commissioned to translate designs into three dimensions such as costumes or fashion items, and also devises and delivers workshops on behalf of art organisations.

Her specialism is with cloth material as she has a background in surface pattern design as well as textile design and construction, which later developed into working in theatre and television as a costume props maker.

Photo (c) Beam + Karen Stansfield + Zachary Eastwood-Bloom