Bob Sloan

[1] Sloan cites his earliest influences as watching blacksmiths shoeing horses, repairing harnesses and cart wheels.

[2] He attended Annadale Grammar School from 1952 to 1959,[3] where he was taught by Kenneth Jamison who was later to become the Director of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

[4] Sloan was trained at the Belfast College of Art between 1959 and 1963, under Romeo Toogood, Tom Carr, John Luke and David Heminsley.

His American excursions also exposed Sloan to new influences in large sculptural works by Nancy Holt, Richard Serra and Mark Di Suvero.

[10] In 1979 Sloan debuted with the Independent Artists where he showed two works, an aluminium piece entitled Even Smaller Dancer, and Confined in cast brass.

[3] Sloan had solo shows with several independent galleries through the nineteen-eighties, including the Fenderesky and the Octagon in Belfast, and the Peacock, Craigavon in successive years from 1984 to 1986.

[18] Two years later Sloan received a civic commission destined for a sculpture trail, by the offices of Lisburn City Council on the banks of the River Lagan.

Tree of Dreams is a nine metre stainless steel sculpture holding five thousand copper leaves, inscribed with the hopes and wishes of residents from across the wider Lisburn area.

Sloan is to the left of the political spectrum, an artist who no longer enjoys exhibiting or opening nights, whom prefers to please himself, working in ways that suit him.

[12] Sloan describes his work as follows:"I'm afraid my art is a bit like the Princess and the Pea -uneasy- if likened to an armchair I suspect there's something lurking in the cushion, about to bite me in the arse"[12] John Hewitt summarized Sloan's work in 1977,"His cast metal pieces show the relationship of the nature of the medium, the surface textures and problems of weight and balance.