David Goff Eveleigh

Artist/Painter/Poet/Clown/Theatre Director. I’ve had a few incarnations in my journey and all rather unconventional but always creative and always with my sketch book, paints and pen at hand. Originally I graduated at Bristol in Fine Art in the 1970’s. After graduating and having been fascinated by the colour, romance and otherness of travelling folk (i.e. gypsies, fairground and circus people), which I had based many of my early paintings and prints on, I joined the circus, Gerry Cottle’s Circus, as an apprentice clown. After which, for 30 years, I toured extensively as The Great Goffee, becoming a leading festival clown, performing shows in Circus, Theatre and many major Festivals (i.e. Glastonbury for 25 years) throughout the UK and abroad. In quieter periods and with my love of landscape and nature, I often turned to landscape design and I have become known for designing and creating labyrinths and mazes on a grand scale i.e. The Greenman Millennium Maze for Penpont Estate, Vineyard Labyrinth for Pool House Estate, Fisher’s Lodge Processional Labyrinth in Newfoundland, Apple Mound Labyrinth at Court of Noke… In the 90’s I discovered Fire. The night time then became my canvas, creating blazing iconic images up to 30ft high, fire labyrinths and great volleys of pyrotechnics. I was soon devising and directing larger and larger pyro dramas (with a cast of hundreds) for community fire festivals at home (i.e. Hay-on-Fire) and then internationally from Eastern Europe, Scandinavia to Mexico and Los Angeles. Chapters close, new ones begin. Now it’s time for me to WRITE and PAINT …with a sense of joyful urgency and enjoyment expressed by my love of colour, subject, a freedom of brush strokes and a love for Life.

"Visionary cove".. John Walsh in The Guardian "Lord of Misrule".. Anna Pavord, The Independent "Just like f…… Nam!".. Tom Wolfe on the Opening Fire Extravaganza for Hay Literary festival