One look at artist Sophie Ryder’s hybrid animal sculptures and you’ll be whisked away into some mystical world. “I sculpt characters and beings- the dogs, the hares, the minotaurs… are all characters beyond animal form. I am not interested in making a replica,” she has said. The charming and remote cottage where she makes her work, featured here, is not far off from the fantasy that it creates. Ryder’s studio is located in the countryside of Colin Valley in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds, England, a beautiful but isolated place that rarely sees visitors. On November 20th, she will open her cottage up to the public for a rare showing of her works, including sculpture, plaster works, drawings, among other pieces. It is more like a moving sale, before she relocates to her new studio. Among Ryder’s many treasures, visitors will be greeted by her famous towering “Lady-Hare”, a counter part to Greek mythology’s Minotaur, wire sculptures hanging from arched windows, and various other creatures inhabiting the fields around the cottage. They are made from practically everything; sawdust, wet plaster, old machine parts and toys, weld joins and angle grinders, wire “pancakes”, torn scraps of paper, charcoal sticks and acid baths. But it is Ryder’s ability to see beyond their construction that makes them real, and her imagination is infectious to anyone who walks through her door.
All photos by Andreas Von Einsiedel, unless otherwise noted.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
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