About Perryn Butler
AWARD-winning Pembrokeshire sculptor and artist Perryn Butler has had a thirst for knowledge and a compulsion to create from a young age.
Over three decades, she has produced a wonderfully spiritual body of work that draws on her passion for ancient and tribal cultures, and the environment and history of Great Britain.
Growing up in Pembrokeshire surrounded by castles and ancient history, using natural and recycled materials in much of her work, she produces sculptures that speak to people on many levels. They evoke an emotional connection, and a desire to touch and handle them in addition to being beautiful pieces of art.
The passionate sculptor and dedicated innovator Perryn Butler has been interested in the art of chiselling stone and slate into beautiful 3D forms ever since training at the Carmarthen College of Art for four years in the ’80s. Utilising hard granite in the form of bluestone, Perryn produces limited-edition designs using bronze sand casting, working intuitively to bring the true beauty of the material to the surface. She realised the need to understand the material and allow it to tell her what to do. Some call it flow, when your hands and mind take over from overthinking and planning. It is like seeing dragons in clouds and witches in trees, an intuitive process.
This works in the same way with her constructions. Perryn makes thousands of components, shapes and textures out of natural materials. She has drawers and boxes full of cut slate, wood, leather, heated metals and interesting objects trouve’. She uses them to tell a story.
Using a variety of stone, she intuitively creates contemporary works in stone (including Pembrokeshire’s own magical bluestone), slate, bronze and natural materials.
Signs and symbols of spiritual life combine with history to bring echoes of the past and a sense of place to her creations.
Perryn has regularly exhibited across Wales, the UK and further afield, including galleries in London, Cardiff, Guernsey, Wexford (Ireland) and San Francisco.
She works from both her home in Haverfordwest and her studio in a 12th-century barn on the Carmarthenshire border.
