Julian Wild’s works allude to minimalist sculptures disrupted by interventions and gestures within their form. He uses colour as an agent to exaggerate the contrast between two elements or to give an object a presence in space. The vibrant colours that he uses make references to industrial colours and modernist sculpture.

He has developed a number of oeuvres: these have grown from the earlier pared down System Series to the recent more playful Crush sculptures. The works that he has made in his career are consistent in their investigation into sculptural language through material, form and surface driven on by a need as an artist to present his perspective on the world: a world that contains incredible human achievement and enormous failures in equal measures. 

Wild works with materials, processes, and found objects that are subverting their purpose often with humour, occupying the space between finish and failure.

Julian Wild has been making sculpture for 30 years. After graduating from Kingston University, Wild worked as an assistant to Damian Hirst before developing his own career path, leading him to exhibitions at venues including: Leighton House Museum, Modern Art Oxford, Chatsworth House (Sotheby's), Sculpture in the City, Canary Wharf, The Fine Art Society, V22, William Benington Gallery and The Ann Norton Sculpture Garden in Florida.

He has completed commissions for: The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail,  The University of Oxford, Modern Forms, Fidelity lnvestments, Cass Sculpture Foundation, Crest Nicholson, Wyeth Europa, Schroders Investment Management, Radley College, Jerwood Sculpture Park, Sculpture in the Parklands in Ireland, Sir George Iacobescu, Cate Blanchett, The Lightbox Gallery and Canary Wharf Group.

Wild attended an Albers Foundation residency at Thread, Senegal in 2024. He was awarded The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Arts club Trust Studio Bursary from 2009-2012. He won an individual Arts Council Grant in 2011, in 2005 he was a finalist in the Jerwood Sculpture Prize and won the Millfield Sculpture Prize in the same year.

Julian Wild was Vice-president of The Royal Society of Sculptors from 2015-2019. He is Sculpture Leader and Lecturer at The Art Academy London and is a Trustee of Chelsea Arts Club Trust and The Discerning Eye. He lives and works in Sussex, UK.

All photos on this site copyright to: Noah DaCosta Anne-Katrin Purkiss and Julian Wild