Mitchell Cleal

Mitchell Cleal is a sculptor who lives and works in Manorowen, Fishguard. He was born and raised in the area and is the son of John Cleal, who founded Workshop Wales in 1970 as a gallery/crafts complex. It is now a mainstay of fine art in West Wales, which the younger Cleal now runs and curates.

The vast majority of Cleal’s work is in bronze or wood, focusing on the human form, whilst his father preferred stone to do the same. Despite the difference in medium, Cleal’s figurative sculptures retain the softly soothing theme of adoration of Sun Lover, one of his late father’s works on permanent display in Fishguard. Cleal’s work is as uplifting as it is spiritually defined – Cleal often depicts moments of serenity, clarity, and oneness, as in Pray and Embrace, both bronze sculptures depicting their namesakes, and Fetch Boy Fetch, a bronze of the exact moment a man finishes pointing his dog in the right direction.

Honing his sculpting in the calm, untroubled environment of Manorowen, Cleal’s work reveres and promotes harmony with the natural world through visceral gestures; Diver is a figure, hewn of Welsh oak, arms outstretched toward the sky. In its upright position, the diver seems to be doing the exact opposite of his title, prompting the viewer to acknowledge Cleal’s harmonious view of the world; up is
down, down is up, the sea and the sky combine at the horizon, and the omnipresence and benevolence of nature is the only means through which we even exist to view his work.