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Rowland Emett (1906–1990) was a decades-long Punch magazine cartoonist and kinetic sculptor known for his fantastical and unusually named machines, such as the Featherstone-Kite Open Basket-Weave Mark Two Gentleman’s Machine. In 1968 he was hired to design many of the visionary inventions of Dick Van Dyke’s character in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Emett continued dreaming up new modes of transportation for the rest of his career. He once said that he sometimes tried to make something serious, “but it always comes out like this.”
Piece in the show: Exploratory Lunacycle
Susan Evans creates toys, sculptures, and automata using all kinds of wood. She uses acrylic paint, washes, and colored inks to decorate her work, and carves using air-dried lime and seals her pieces with a matte water-based varnish or wax polish. After training as a teacher of history she was appointed to a job in Grimsby on England’s east coast. There she began her artistic practice by making personal gifts for friends from materials found on the beach: driftwood, recycled wood, and other found objects. Susan is a member of the British Toymakers Guild.
Piece in the show: Cat and Birds
The beaches and cliffs of Cornwall were painter Robert Jones’ playground and inspired his fascination with maritime subjects. He studied at Redruth and Falmouth College of Art and later received teaching credentials. After teaching for several years, he dedicated himself to making art full-time. Jones is a prolific artist and has exhibited widely. He’s also published two books: Alfred Wallis: Artist Mariner and Reuben Chappell: Pierhead Painter.
Piece in the show: Sailing By
Hernán Lira began making toys and puppets at the age of 15. He counts among his artistic influences his own children, the students he worked with as an elementary school teacher, and the artists and craftspeople he has met while traveling the world. To spread toymaking and puppet-making skills in his home country of Argentina, he has developed a collection of play centers and workshops.
Piece in the show: Orchesta Típica de Tango
A former professor of painting, Peter Markey (1930–2016) began a career in automata in 1980 when someone innocently suggested that he try making his sculptures of soccer players move. Markey's work is known for its simple designs and use of bright colors, and for his use of uncarved wood—the people and animals in his automata take on the original shape of the wood, rather than the other way around.
Pieces in the show: Green Ride, Green Shopping, The View from Tuke’s Cottage
Keith Newstead worked as a motorcycle dispatch rider and a newspaper delivery person, braving -20ºC temperatures, until his love for automata convinced him to come in from the cold. Newstead continues to experiment with new styles and material and to find new ways of creating movement.
“Automata are really about exploring and inventing mechanisms to recreate some movement you might find in life,” says Newstead. “And it’s also very accidental. So if you don’t get it right, it doesn’t matter because what you do get might be better than what you wanted to get.”
Pieces in the show: Brassy Dragon, Brian’s Brilliant Bike, Dieselpunk Pegasus, God’s Wonderful Railway, Owl and the Pussycat, Red Bird
After a twenty-year teaching career, Lisa Slater returned to producing her own art—automata inspired by animals, individuals, historical craft and folk art such as traditional Dutch peg dolls, and anything she finds funny. She works in her studio, Northlight Art Studios, in West Yorkshire.
Piece in the show: Automata Maker
Co-founder and Art Director of the design label, Laikingland, Martin Smith started making and selling automata soon after leaving art school in the mid-1990s. He undertakes some very large, kinetic architectural commissions that interact with the site and viewer through mechanical movement. Martin also creates smaller mechanical devices that investigate repetition, humor, nonsense, and futility.
Piece in the show: Applause Machine
Paul Spooner fostered mechanical interests from an early age and studied at Lancaster College of Art and in Cardiff, Wales, specializing in mechanical sculpture. He built a wooden clock, a wooden steam engine, and weaving looms for his wife before taking up automata as an art form in 1981. His exhibits, including those of the jackal-headed Egyptian god Anubis, now tour the world.
Pieces in the show: How to Swim No. 17, We Want a Window and We Want It Here, Who’s Who on the Tree of Life, Winter
Colombian-born, United Kingdom–based automata maker Carlos Zapata decided to become an artist at the age of nine. He worked as a painter for many years, but always felt something missing—until he built his first automaton in 1998.
Today, he produces colorful, emotionally expressive automata for public institutions and private collectors around the world. Zapata's automata start with good stories, but the materials he uses tend to come with narratives of their own—he likes to use reclaimed wood and scrap metal that have already lived other lives, adding another layer of story and experience to his work.
Pieces in the show: Gentleman, Inner Child, Views from the Vandemeer, Water Ahoy
