Sophie Dickens - Sculpture

             
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Sophie Dickens Working Practice

Aided by a meticulous study of anatomy, learnt in actual clinical dissections (for artists) and drawing classes, Sophie constructs armatures in welding metal r
ods together like lyrical skeletal drawings on which she begins to attach or layer specifically worked pieces of wood cut on a band saw from oak panels.  Using a fluid dynamic in understanding the nature of convex and concave forms she creates a muscular movement akin to the classic Eadweard Muybridge studies that have influenced her, ultimately bringing all the segments together and creating a cohesive kinematical feel of bone, muscle and sinew.  She makes what can be very complex achievements seem effortless with a natural ability that gives a life and character to her work.

Simon Levy
Sculptor and Painter
Resident in England and Mexico



Read the interview conducted by Caroline Lazar on the subject of Mythology by clicking the arrow


Curriculum Vitae
 

 
   
 

1984 - 1987
1989 - 1991
1991
 

Courtauld Institute, University of London
Sir John Cass School of Art, London
Department of Anatomy, University College, London

   
  Exhibitions
 
 
  2001

2003
2004
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011

2012



2013


2014


2015
2016
2017

2018
McHardy Sculpture Company, London
Vertigo Gallery, London
McHardy Sculpture Company, London
Stella von Boch, London
Stella von Boch, Germany and London
Sladmore Gallery, London
Galerie Cymaise, Paris
Stella von Boch, Wiesbaden
Sladmore Gallery, London
Millinery Works, London
Southwark Cathedral
Sladmore Gallery, London
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford - group show
Victoria Gallery, Bath - group show
Gloucester Cathedral
Graham, New York
"Landscape" - group show Millinery Works, London
Big Deal - group show Cavendish Square underground car park
Chinese Open - group show Chinatown, London
Sladmore Gallery, London
De Re Gallery, Los Angeles
Buro Four, National Theatre
Be Mine, Sladmore Contemporary
Personal Structures, Palazzo Mora, Venice Biennale - large group show
Tre Posti – three installations in Pieve di Teco, Liguria
7 Wolves, Galleria Cristiani, Turin
Sladmore Contemporary
   
  Prizes
 
 
  1991
2007
Owen-Rowley Scupture Prize
The Sculpture Prize at theVictoria and Albert Museum - Inspired by the Human Form - The Founders’ Award
 
   
  Commissions
 
 
  2004


2005


2007

2008
2009


2010
2011
2012

2013

2014


2015

2016


2017


2018
The Way the Land Lies - installation at Burghley House
Leapfrog - Cumberland Hotel, London
Adam and Eve - The Old Zoo, Lancashire
Stag - Brockhall Village, Lancashire
Walking the Dog - RBS Centenary Exhibition, Leicester Botanic Gardens
“If you believe in me...” . Unicorn Children’s Theatre, London
Mother and Child - John Lewis, Cambridge
Turning Man - Worshipful Company of Founders
Diana and Hounds - private client
Francis Cator Memorial weather vane, Norfolk
Minotaur – private client, San Francisco

Cartwheel – Woburn Abbey
2012 Olympic judo sculpture – ArtattheEdge
Large Cartwheel – Moscow
Bird I Panasonic, London
Football, Soccer, Sprint, Ice Hockey - NBC Sports News, Connecticut, USA
Bull - Heston Blumenthall
Diver - Connaught Hotel, London
Minotaur Medal, British Museum, London
Variable Landscape - collection Sir Michael Hopkins
Monkey installation - Sladmore Contemporary
Chinese Open – group show, Chinatown, London
Buro Four  Thirty-for –Thirty,  sculpture inspired by NT project
Be Mine! – Valentine’s exhibition, Sladmore Contemporary
Hilton Hotel, Faro, Portugal
Grand Palace Hotel, Manchester
Dive - Los Angeles
Pool Boys – Frankfurt
Satyrs with amphora – New York
Diver -  Benyon Memorial Garden, Royal Berkshire Hospital
   
  Publications
 
 
  2015
The Space between Us - book of drawings    
 

Comments on Adam and Eve

 
Sophie Dickens's Adam and Eve is a masterly and extremely moving exercise in balance.  The manner in which she has sculpted two monumental figures, one female, one male, in a scene of entire togetherness, allows her to explore a range of powerful and simultaneous fleeting emotions.  She has created a compelling image of vulnerability and despair, which nonetheless is leavened by Adam's protective tenderness and by Eve's gesture in which shame is blended with an optimistic hint at her future maternity.  The mood shifts as the viewer moves round the piece.  At one moment we are overwhelmed by the weighty sorrow of the event; the next we are struck by the way in which the figures seem to leave the ground, like souls rising to heaven.  This extraordinary combination of lightness and weight works through the composition, but above all through the sculptural surface.  Dickens employs both jutting relief and airy voids to establish the anatomy of her figures and, still more importantly, their sacred and very human predicament.

Luke Syson
Curator of 15th Italian Paintings, National Gallery, London

This graceful, even tender, two-figure group achieves something very unusual in the recent history of religious art by making us feel again the universal and personal meanings of human disaster.  As they walk away, Adam's body inclines in grief but also shields the inconsolable Eve as she clutches at her breasts, beside herself with loss and remorse.  The force of the sculptor's rendering is unsentimental but the beholder feels they should step back again, avoiding to intrude on such an intimate calamity.

Dr Alison Wright

Senior Lecturer, University College, London
 
             
             
             
           
 

www.sophiedickens.co.uk