Sophie Ryder

Sophie Ryder (born 1963) is a British sculptor known for her large wire structures. Ryder uses materials including bronze, wet plaster embedded with found materials, sheet metal, marble, and stained glass. Additionally, her practice includes drawing, painting and printmaking as a counterpoint to her sculptural work.

Biography

Sophie Ryder was born in London, England in 1963. She studied combined arts at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1981 to 1984, focusing initially on painting. But she changed her focus when the Royal Academy's director, Sir Hugh Casson, encouraged her to develop her work in sculpture.[1]

Ryder's monumental sculptures represent mystical creatures, animals and hybrid beings created in Assemblages of materials such as sawdust, wet plaster, obsolete machinery, toys, weld joins, wire 'pancakes', torn scraps of paper and charcoal sticks. Her iconography includes the character of the Lady Hare, which she sees as a counterpart to Ancient Greek mythology's Minotaur.

Works

Ryder's work is mainly focused on mythical creatures. Her most known piece is the Lady Hare, a hare with a female human body. The works have been commended as fun and unusual, questioning human relationships to the natural and folkloric worlds whilst contemplating dualities of perception.[2][3][4] In 1994, a minor controversy arose when one of Ryder's sculptures, a depiction of five minotaurs, was excluded from an exhibition of her work at Winchester Cathedral because the sculpture included genitalia as part of the anatomy.[5]

Influences

Of her influences Ryder has stated, "I don't sit and contemplate what it is I am trying to achieve. My head is full of ideas all the time. It is part of my life. I don't plan anything, it just comes." Similarly, when asked about the prominence of hares in her work, the artist stated, "it's the same as asking me why I make sculptures, and the answer is because I feel driven to. So it's difficult to always pin down reasons. My introduction to hares was when my lurcher dog would proudly bring hares home and drop them at my feet."[6]

References
  1. "SOPHIE RYDER". sophieryder. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
  2. "Creating Mythical Hybrid Creatures, Sophie Ryder's Exhibition Challenges Our Perspective On the Animal World". LeftLion. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  3. "Sophie Ryder on mythology, majestic animals and the male-dominated field of sculpture". Creative Boom. 13 October 2017. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  4. Benington, Jonathan (2001). Sophie Ryder. Sophie Ryder. Aldershot, Hampshire: Lund Humphries in association with Berkeley Square Gallery. ISBN 0-85331-826-3. OCLC 47270995.
  5. Alberge, Dalya (7 April 1994). "Cathedral ban on sculptor's 'indecent' minotaurs: Sophie Ryder's latest work has fallen foul of church censors because of its 'too prominent' genitalia". The Independent. Archived from the original on 24 May 2022. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  6. "Waterhouse & Dodd". Waterhouse & Dodd. Retrieved 4 May 2022.
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