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Chris Hepworth Biography

I’ve been asked by Chris to write a short biography for this website. As Chris isn’t the self-promoting type,

I feel it is my responsibility to get across to you a sense of the man behind the art.

As is traditional in a biography, I shall start with the factual information that illustrates the

foundations of Chris’ life. Born Christopher Hepworth in 1970 in Sunderland, Tyne and

Wear, he lived in Penshaw until he was 5 years old, then moved with his family to Wash-

ington, where he had his Primary and High School education. He left school at 16 years

of age and because he had no sense of where his career path was going, he worked in

haulage and various other jobs until he was 26. Chris had always been creative as a child,

through his teenage years and in his spare time as an adult. He had been airbrushing

since 14 years old, painting in oils since 11 years of age, “constantly” drawing and modelling

fantasy figurines such as wizards, dragons, etc. At the age of 26, having never felt a sense

of satisfaction or belonging in his work life, Chris felt that his creative abilities may be where

his future career lay, and so enrolled at the Derwentside College in Consett, to see if this wew true.

The course that Chris decided upon was a foundation course that comprised of many elements including photography, drawing/painting, fashion design/textiles, printmaking and 3-dimensional design, in working with wood, metal, plastics and clay. Chris was convinced at this time in his life that his talents would be best suited to commercial art/graphic design. “The wheel was the last thing I thought would get me”. On talking at length with Chris, it was during this one-year foundation course that his direction and focus changed completely. The first time he sat at a potters wheel during the 3-dimensional design element of his course (having recently watched his lecturer create “magic” before Chris’ eyes by turning a “lump of clay into a form”), Chris was totally captivated. When relaying this time in his life to me, Chris’ eyes are alive with the memory – he talks of the more and more he worked with clay on the wheel, the more he found it “the most challenging and highly addictive thing I’ve ever done. I had found an instant form of art and from the moment I got on the wheel, I was hooked”. With this type of passion, it is no surprise that Chris passed his foundation course and chose to specialise and do his Advanced GNVQ in 3-Dimensional Art and Design.

Bewitched by his new joy in life, Chris spent every available minute on his beloved wheel. To me, on hearing Chris’ compulsion to learn and succeed, I’m reminded of a footballer repeatedly aiming for goal or a ballerina perfecting a routine – the truly dedicated who lose themselves in the ‘zone’ to the point of losing all sense of time and meaning for anything other than the subject of their complete concentration. So it was for Chris. The compelling force to improve his art had indeed become addictive, “Every time I had to come off the wheel, I couldn’t wait to get back on. During any breaks or lessons I could get out of, I went to the wheel. When I was there working on a piece, I lost all track of time, on the wheel, time has its own meaning, off the wheel, time dragged. I’d discovered there’s truly no feeling like it”.