Paul Fryer

Paul Fryer (born 1963) is a British sculptor, installation artist and musician. He is known for wax, glass and electrical works that set religious imagery against scientific and industrial processes. Before turning to visual art full-time in 2005, he worked in music and fashion, including five years as musical director for Fendi. His sculptures are held in the François Pinault Foundation and have been shown at venues including the Gucci Museo in Florence, the Venice Biennale collateral exhibition Glasstress, and Somerset House in London. Since recovering from throat cancer, he has also recorded music under the name OUIJA.

Early life Fryer was born in 1963 in Leeds.

He gave up his design and music work to concentrate on sculpture in 2005, debuting with the solo show Carpe Noctum at Trolley Gallery, London. In 2007 the pair presented Art and Science: A Star in a Jar as part of the Serpentine Gallery's Experiment Marathon, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Olafur Eliasson. The same year Fryer contributed a Tesla-coil lightning sculpture to The Tempest, made with Mat Collishaw for the 52nd Venice Biennale, and completed Pietà (The Empire Never Ended), a hyperrealistic wax figure of Christ seated in an electric chair, later acquired for the François Pinault Foundation.

In October 2008, during Frieze week, Fryer suspended a wax figure of a fallen angel from high-voltage cables for Lucifer (Morning Star) at Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, shown alongside Martyr, which memorialised an electrical lineman killed on the job. In 2010 Pietà was exhibited at the Cathedral of Gap in the French Pyrenees, where its depiction of Christ's execution by electric chair drew controversy in the local press. Two years later, Pietà and a second work, Ophelia (white), were presented as Lo Spirito Vola, a Pinault Collection exhibition at the Gucci Museo in Florence. His glass sculptures Nebula and Hydromorphs (1–9) were shown in Glasstress: White Light, White Heat, a collateral event of the 55th Venice Biennale, in 2013. In 2016 Fryer was one of more than seventy artists in Daydreaming with Stanley Kubrick at Somerset House, London.

Fryer has described his outlook as Gnostic, saying his work treats "knowledge of self" as central, and has spoken of using "technology as theology" to connect scientific process with older religious imagery. Meaningless Static. Poetry and photography, with Damien Hirst. London: Westzone Publishing. .

Music Fryer worked as a musician before he became known as a sculptor, including five years as musical director for Fendi and the multimedia performance Electronic Elvis.

Illness Around 2019, Fryer was diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer and given roughly a 60/40 chance of survival. A Light That Never Goes Out, Stubbs Gallery, London (2023)

Group Lo Spirito Vola (Pinault Collection), Gucci Museo, Florence (2012) Glasstress: White Light, White Heat, Palazzo Franchetti & Berengo Glass Museum, Venice, collateral event, 55th Venice Biennale (2013) Art Lovers (Pinault Collection), Grimaldi Forum, Monaco (2014) Daydreaming with Stanley Kubrick, Somerset House, London (2016) So British! 10 Masterpieces from the Pinault Collection, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen (2019–20)