Sophie Ryder is a well known female large scale British sculpture artist. Her sculptures often been displayed in open-air space. Most of the sculpture characters are Minotaur and Lady Hare. Her inspiration comes from her own life experiences and her dogs. Been very lucky I had an opportunity to visit her solo show at Nottingham Lack Side art gallery. Her amazing sculptures opened a door for me and lead to dive in her mystical art world. By wandering around the whole show, I have to say that I admire Sophie's ideas and her ambition. Most of the sculptures are made by bonze with large scales, that's not a easy thing for a female artist to do, however, she managed created everything by herself.
Talk about the way how the curator to set up an individual artist's show.
As you can see, all the sculptures have been displayed by an certain distance, you can feel they have connections but independent at the same time which is quite clever. This way is easy for the audience to look every angle of each sculpture without interrupt the whole scene.
I also recognized that there isn't much posters or words on the wall to explain the art works as the exhibitions I have been visited before. Therefore, I do like this way because my visual point couldn't attract by anything else but only the art works. Without all the words and explanations I could draw all my attention on the details of the sculptures more. It even makes me more curious about how she made them, why and what's the meaning behind?
The way how they show the installation Temple to the 200 Rabbits is smart as well. They chose to display them in a completely separate space without lights and only with surrounding music. Once I step into that separate area I can feel the creepy temple style straight away.
Let us look closer and talk about couple of specific works of Sophie.
As a woman and a mother by myself, when I saw Lady Hare lays there with her baby I had a connection with them directly. This is exactly the position I used when I cuddle my son and breath feeding my son when he was little. Sophie created all her works based on her own experience and the body of Lady Hare represents her body as well. I guess that's why the audience like me could feel the emotion deeply. Lady Hare and her baby's eyes both almost closed, I could feel how chill they are at the moment and how happiness they are at that position. The baby's hand holds her breast and feet touching her legs, I could feel the baby surround by mom's love and feels safe. Looks closer you can see the rough texture on the bodies, Sophie said she doesn't like shinny and smooth on the surface, so she always try to add textures on her sculptures. The smooth and tender emotion which is love makes a contrast with the texture and the material.
If you look carefully, actually you can see the Lady Hare's head actually isn't the hare's head. The hare's head is a mask, the human head is hiding underneath. But why she did it this way? Does the artist want to hide or she wants to create a mystical feeling to the audience? I guess only Sophie knows the answer.
Girl with Knees Up
Another wire sculpture is shocked me when I walked by it. Lady Hare is giant at this time, she is about two meters high which is much taller than me. Her eyes are wild open and looking beyond. You can see her head is a mask clearly. The position how she sits down on the ground just like any of us how we sit on the grass or the corner in our home. I could feel Lady Hare's body is here but her mind is flying at somewhere else. Maybe that's what Sophie wants to delivery.
Check up the wire details, it's a mess but with organisation. And she made it all by her hands which is extremely amazing. It's a normal human position however, when the artist makes it large scale like this, it exaggerates the emotions and astonishes the audience.
Over all by looking all her art works at the exhibition, I did enjoying it. Also there are question marks in my brain. Sophie wants to use human form to represent animals or she wants to use the animal form to represent human? Is there any differences? Because human are animals too. And I bet everyone must has some moments in their life welling to be a animal! Because they are more pure, they are more brave and they are more simple.
( If you want to understand more about Sophie and her works, check this link and listen it, trust me, you won't regret.https://vimeo.com/778788460)
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