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Sophie Dickens
A casual but frequent visitor happening in at Sophie Dickens'studio: the Dulux dog barks; Sophie herself is muffled against the cold, her glasses glint. All the acrobats havenow been replaced with pelicans, first the bare but exact armatures, then, in a few weeks, suddenly Pelicans ."It's so cold the paint won't dry on them" Sculpture is a hard profession.
But Sophie Dickens is on a roll. Her "Archangels" are travelling slowly from one splendid building to another..Southwark Cathedral, St. George's Bloomsbury, showing their affinity with each new building ...they would look splendid in the city. Other large-scale groups
figures are let loose on Moscow, projected on Hong Kong, gambolling in the grounds of Woburn Abbey. The new Pelicans (I am looking over Sophie's shoulder at them) have an authority about the wood-cutting, done on an industrial band-saw; the neck of the nearest one curves up in a figure of 8 with an abstracted eye and then plunges its beak directly down into the centre if its back. Elegant, effortless sculptural
sensibility, they call to mind Pevesner, Vorticism, Gaudier-Brzeska, early John Skeaping. Two honest decades of making , making , making have rewarded Dickens well, with a singular and authorative style which is now beginning to receive its deserved recognition.
If there is a contemporary artist I also call to mind it is Markus Lupertz, and I forsee and ordain that Sophie Dickens will be more and more invited into the mainstream art forum, for so long been
overly dominated with ironic, skimpy art, leaving a generation of young artists without any robust role-model who combines all the honest virtues of hard-won forms, and timeless interest.
Joanna Price
Artist. February 2012
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FENCERS - AFTER MUYBRIDGE (Parre and Lunge)
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GRAECO-ROMAN WRESTLERS I
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GRAECO-ROMAN WRESTLERS II
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CLEAN AND JERK (Set of Five)
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STRAIGHT JAB (Boxers)
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MARKSMAN (Small)
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HANDSPRING (To Feet)
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HANDSPRING (From Hands)
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HANDSPRING (On Staircase)
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FLICKFLACK (Set of Five)
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LARGE MOROTE SEIO NAGE
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Judo
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LARGE DIVE (Set of Five)
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HOLDING ON
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ST. MARK (Large)
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ST. MATHEW (Large)
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ST. LUKE (Large)
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ST. JOHN (Large)
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ST. MATHEW
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ST MARK
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ST. LUKE
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ST. JOHN
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LAUGHING SATYR
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SATYR CLAPPING
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CENTAUR STRETCHING
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THREE GRACES (Small)
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BIRTH OF VENUS 1
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HEAD OF MEDUSA
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ICARUS RISING (Small Relief)
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BRINGING HOME THE WINE X6 (In a Saucepan, In a Hat, In a Bucket, In a Shoe, In a Tablecloth, In a Glass)
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PELICAN PREENING (Lifesize)
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PELICAN STANDING (Lifesize)
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PELICAN FEEDING (Lifesize)
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PLAYING DOGS
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READY TO ROLL (Seated Rhino)
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