Alongside his art practice he has worked as a designer in both the publishing and advertising worlds. Between 1996 and 2002 he won many awards as a Creative Director in the New Media industry. In 2003 he moved to a barn in Aberdeenshire, Scotland to make art full-time.

He has shown work in both Scotland and London and now lives and works by Deptford Creek.

www.patrickstpaul.com

I'm interested in the analysis of phenomena and the process of 'signification' by which we attribute meaning. What is obvious to one person is hidden to the next - function doesn't necessarily follow form. In a number of pieces of work I have tried to create objects, particularly tools, which defy interpretation - a knife that doesn't cut, a violin bow that plays with itself. Lacking obvious purpose they acquire a level of mystique that goes beyond ornament and this is their function - to point towards the unknown, or rather towards the language of myth by which we try to understand our selves.

'As we hurtle slowly towards the event-horizon of our culture in ever more self-referential spirals, I find myself, here at the edge of the world, picking through the scraps, rummaging through the debris, trying to piece together a purpose from the fragments. History is not in matter but in the mind.'

The Table of Loaves

An altar on which a ritual sacrifice is played out, ending one cultural cycle and beginning another.

The Table of Loaves

The gunslingers, whose wingtips end in pistols, are doves watched by the incinerated bystander and marshalled by policemen. Cutlery flies through the air, transforming itself into bones.

The Table of Loaves

God is a bird of prey whose nest contains a Bible. Photographers perch on the planets, waiting for the main event.

The Table of Loaves

The table itself is both an altar and an ass, the like of which bore prophets.