SOPHIE MARSHAM
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ABOUT SOPHIE Sophie Marsham is in her early 40’s, married, has teenage children, lives in Putney and bakes her own bread! That’s in her spare time, otherwise you will find her blow torch in hand welding gear on turning unwanted pieced of metal into masterpieces. At the age of 20 Sophie travelled to South Carolina, it was here she became a goldsmith apprentice to an amazing jeweller called John Henry Whitmire and she fell in love with metals, soldering and design. Returning to London she studied at the Chelsea School of Art for five years, upon leaving her first job was to produce an enormous copper chicken and tuna for Prêt a Manger stores. Sophie has always seen beauty in what many consider scrap, since her first successful commercial foray she has been commissioned to design and produce large eco sculptures for companies and individuals around the world. Her larger works are on a grand scale, some similar in size to the Angel of the North, for the creation of these she visits an iron works in Littlehampton where she can set up scaffolding and weld away. However, more recently she has started working on smaller more personal pieces. These she produces in her garden studio, creating beautiful thought provoking works from both unique and unusual items such as original chocolate moulds or more mundane by products including beer bottle tops. Her ethos is to create something interesting from discarded items, she is constantly gathering the strangest thrown away objects and loves how these bits and pieces can be reinterpreted and sculpted into something else. She uses all sorts of oddities including stainless steel medical equipment, teeth from large farm cutting machinery, circular saw blades and car suspension springs. An old radiator becomes a sheep, garden shears become a bird or cutlery becomes fingers and toes. The sculptures may grow organically as new objects are found or added. A lot of her larger sculptures are interactive, positively encouraging the observer to touch and participate in the moving pieces. In addition to this she takes on what can only be described as sympathetic individual commissions; for example one client wanted something special to remember his father by and commissioned Sophie to use items from the garden shed (the dad had been a keen gardener with a shed full off tools). She was able to sculpt a unique piece using personal items that may otherwise have been thrown or given away.
EXHIBITIONS 2012
Exhibited at 72 Wellbeck Street, London
2012
Exhibited at Berger House, Berkeley Square, London
2012
Exhibited at the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden
2011
Exhibited at the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden
2010
Exhibited at the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden
2007
Art In The Garden 07 at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Hampshire
2006
Joint exhibition at Coningsby Gallery, London
2006
Joint exhibition of garden sculpture at Brighton Festival
2003
Group Show at The Coningsby Gallery, London
2002
Joint exhibition in a sculpture garden for Brighton Festival
2001
Solo show at Kirshenbaum, Bond & Partners, NY, USA
2000
Sculpture show, Workshop Wales, Wales
1999
Solo show, Coningsby Gallery, London
1996
Joint show, Lemonade Factory, London
1995
Solo Show of sculpture, Coningsby Gallery, London
1994
Joint Exhibition, Coningsby Gallery, London
1994
Glass and Metal Sculpture, Lemonade Factory, London
500 OWLS
Commisioned by: Aspria Members Club and Spa in Hamburg
ORANGE FLOWER
Created as part of a set for the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden in Ockley Surrey
CRYSTAL FLOWER
Art to Buy: Mixed media and mounted on a wooden block, 73cm x 30cm x14cm, ÂŁ250
BEER FLOWERS
Art to Buy: Beer flowers using bottle top, 46cm x 12cm x 30cm, ÂŁ300
‘M’ IS FOR MONKEY
Art to Buy: Mixed media with moving arms, 27cm x 15cm x 7cm, £90
TIME OF THE ESSENCE
Art to Buy: Mixed media mounted in glass antique biscuit tin, 23cm x 22cm x 6cm, ÂŁ300
SMALL RABBIT
Art to Buy: Mixed media rabbit and small flowers, 10cm x 10cm x 5cm, ÂŁ60