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For Sophie Ryder, making art is more a compulsion, than a profession. Born in England in 1963, she studied Combined Arts at the Royal Academy of Arts where she obtained a diploma in painting; however, encouraged by fellow artists, she embarked on a path to develop her skill as a sculptor. As Ryder began her career she was fearlessly eager to test herself with as diverse an array of materials as possible, be it plaster, bronze or galvanised wire, she was also keen to experiment with creating work of differing scale. When looking at Sophie Ryder's works, the strong link she has drawn between mythology and human life and emotions becomes instantly apparent, yet everything she creates is decisively human. She employs the figure of the hare, for instance, to reinterpret the ancient Minotaur of Greek mythology, the hare's head is simply a mask for the sitter human sitter who is in fact the artist herself. The intent of each of Ryder's works is to convey, in an everlasting form, a momentary human emotion. Ryder's uniqueness lies in her ability to communicate the variety of human emotions through body language alone, as the human face and the instinctive emotions that our faces can convey are masked; through her work, she tries to capture nearly every aspect of what it is to be human: vulnerability, tiredness, hunger, happiness, jealousy, pain, love and fear with a playful sense of humour and forthright sexuality. As is evident in the pieces in this catalogue, another key characteristic of Ryder's production is the scale of the works: the monumental proportions of the sculptures reflect the artist's desire to completely immerse herself in the process of making: being able to move around a piece and interact with it from every angle; a privilege that the onlooker is also able to share when confronted with these imposing sculptures. 'Eye' and 'Curled up' are magnificent examples of what best characterizes Sophie Ryder's oeuvre: the process of using wire in this way has been invented and methodically perfected by the artist; the outdoor wire sculptures all start with a sketch, followed by a very small plaster 'maquette', which is then scaled up to four times its size to create a medium sized plaster and then again to the full scale work. Each piece has a very detailed armature underneath on which to base the work; the artist then makes wire 'pancakes' which she then applies to the armature, the whole is then dipped into boiling zinc during the galvanization process which further bonds the elements and provides a weather-proofing, giving the work its ethereal grey surface.

SOPHIE RYDER (B.1963)

Curled Up

Details

SOPHIE RYDER (B.1963)
Curled Up
Signed 'Ryder'
wire
73 in. (186 cm.) high; 243 in. (617 cm.) wide; 122 in. (309 cm.) deep
executed in 2009, in eight sections

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

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Lot Essay

The figure of the Hare is now a continuous presence in Ryder's body of work and was developed by the artist as the counterpart of the Minotaur, another core theme in her production. Her use of the mythological figure of the Minotaur, inspired by Picasso's depictions, is not represented as the aggressive and fierce creature of the Greek mythology, on the contrary, but as loving and caring; the figure of the hare, a nocturnal animal associated with fertility, was chosen to compliment Minotaur's potent sexuality.

PLEASE NOTE THIS LOT IS NOT COVERED BY CADOGAN TATE'S STANDARD CHARGES, AS DETAILED ON PAGE 3, AND IS SUBJECT TO AN INDIVIDUAL TRANSFER FEE. PLEASE CONTACT CADOGAN TATE FOR A QUOTE.

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