This striking abstract bronze is inspired by a 2 metre high steel work of the same title. Bryan Kneale took advantage of the reusable nature of this material and after gaining permission from the British Armed Forces, welded his work 'Nikkessen' out of the shell of an unexploded bomb and an oxygen canister. His interest in working with steel was sparked by his father bringing home a piece of shrapnel from the only German bomb to hit the Isle of Man during his childhood. The twisted nature of the steel after impact set a young Kneale's imagination alight! Nearly six decades later, the artist has cast the work in bronze on a domestic scale.

Born in the Isle of Man in 1930, Bryan Kneale attended the Douglas School of Art in 1947 before leaving to attend the Royal Academy Schools in 1948, where he was awarded the prestigious Rome Prize. Travelling Italy extensively he was greatly affected and influenced by his visits to Paestum and Pompeii, as well as by the contemporary work of the futurists and metaphysical painters.

Back in London in 1959, Kneale learnt to forge and weld and his solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1966 followed. In his eyes, making sculpture is a process of self-discovery. His innate fear of repetition means that once a form becomes familiar it is immediately discarded. What has been previously made will inform future new sculpture and will change the development of his work, but that form as it stands will not continue. Not content with making and exhibiting, Kneale was also a curator and teacher for many years.

The first abstract sculptor to be elected to the Royal Academy, he very quickly went on to mount 'British Sculptors', the seminal exhibition of Modern British Sculpture at the Royal Academy in 1972. An exhibition of the work of twenty-four sculptors working in the UK at the time, it has since been described as the most groundbreaking exhibition of contemporary sculpture held in Britain. He also curated the Jubilee exhibition of British Sculpture in Battersea Park in 1977. Bryan Kneale's career as a teacher began at the Royal College of Art in 1952, becoming Head of Sculpture in 1985 and Professor of Drawing in 1990.

Kneale has exhibited widely both within the UK and internationally and his work can be found in many prestigious public collections including the Tate Collection; The British Museum; The Natural History Museum, London; The Arts Council of Great Britain; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paolo, Brazil and the National Gallery of New Zealand.

To quote Bryan Kneale; "(the point of making sculpture) is to try and discover in some way the meaning of your own life, to clarify in your own mind those capabilities, or abilities, to see things achieve an existence independent of yourself".

Pangolin London are proud to represent Bryan Kneale.