Profile: David Mach, artist

BORN in Methil in 1956, David Mach studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee - where he experimented with many of the methods he continues to use in his work - and at the Royal College of Art, London, where he has lived since moving there to study in 1979.

Mach has used everyday mass-produced objects, such as newspapers, magazines, car tyres and coathangers, in his installations throughout his career, often mixing social commentary with humour.

His first solo exhibition was at the Lisson Gallery, in London, in 1982 and he has since gone on to become one of Britain's best-known and respected artists. He has work in the collections of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, several major London galleries, including Tate Britain, and others around the world from San Diego to Tokyo and Auckland. His best-known work in Scotland, the Big Heids, is on the south side of the M8 in Lanarkshire.

He famously made a submarine sculpture, Polaris, out of around 6,000 tyres in 1982, intended as a protest against the arms race and there was huge controversy over his 160,000 Temple at Tyre installation, built at Leith Docks as part of Edinburgh's failed bid to become Britain's City of Architecture and Design in 1999.

Mach was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1998 and four years later won the Lord Provost's Prize in Glasgow. He was appointed professor of sculpture at the Royal Academy of Arts in London 12 years ago.

Mach received an honorary doctorate from Dundee University in 2002 and it later made him a professor of "inspiration and discovery".