Sophie Dickens is a contemporary British sculptor. Her instantly recognisable, exuberant, modern sculptures have adorned cathedrals and enlivened skylines from London to LA. United by an energy and wit, her body of work is broad and restless, covering a wide range of abstract and figurative subject matter, classical and de-pedestalised, installations of packs and flocks, athletes, gods and lovers.
Armed with a degree in the history of art from the Courtauld Institute, Sophie set out to learn the practicalities of making figurative sculpture, attending the Sir John Cass School of Art, and also the department of anatomy at University College, London. Her distinctive style comes from her technique of building figures from abstract geometric shapes of curved wood and attaching them to an armature to create fluid, muscular form.
Sophie was the first winner of the Founders' Prize for figurative sculpture in 2007 with a piece called The Turning Man. Loosely inspired by Michelangelo's Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, this gravity defying sculpture was exhibited at the V and A in London. Later notable pieces include a 3m stainless steel minotaur for an apartment in San Francisco (also exhibited at the first Masterpiece Art Fair in London in 2010). Matthew, Mark, Luke and John'- a roaming installation of winged beasts, toured British churches and cathedrals in 2011. An abstract re-organisable piece made of corten, Variable Landscape, was on the cover of Galleries Magazine and bought by the architect Sir Michael Hopkinson in 2014. That year she had a piece on British television when she created a brazen bull for the chef Heston Blumenthall.
Sporting pieces include a large bronze judo throw for the London 2012 Olympics, and a sequence based on a Nadal serve for a client in Saudi Arabia. A large bronze carriage horse was commissioned for the atrium of The Principal Hotel in Manchester in 2016, and a diver for the champagne bar of the Connaught Hotel in London. More recently, a pack of wolves made from recycled chestnut floorboards was exhibited in Turin.
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