Featured Artist Deborah Harrison

British sculptor Deborah Harrison presents a portfolio that ranges from portraying nature to the human condition. See more by visiting her website.

 

 

There is nobody more surprized than me that I have become a stone sculptor. I have a background in science with no notable artists in my family. The only early clue to my spatial awareness was my ability to get everything in the car boot when we were going on holiday, whereas none of the other family members could.

 

 

In my middle years I had a chance encounter at an arts festival with a block of terracotta clay (which was too hard to reshape) resulting in me using a craft knife. The finished piece was placed at the front of hundreds of other clay forms to recreate Anthony Gormley’s The Crowd. 

 

 

So, my carving addiction began. After getting the highest bid at a Stone Masons Carving Festival, things unfolded as if I had a calling. I made a choice to commit to it.

 

 

My inspiration comes from the strangest things (ranging from the image on a greetings card to dreams.) If an image fits the shape of the stone, I run with it. My thinking has always been back to front: even in science I began with the conclusion and worked backwards to the proof.

 

 

It’s the same with sculpture. I seem to make a piece, and then the person finds it, declaring it was made for them. This best examples of this are firstly The Valley of the Shadow which is a sculpture of a man being tortured, made from white and grey marble. As I carved it, I was thinking, “Who will buy this?” Within 24 hours of it going live online, Sir Malcolm Evans, who had been the chair of the United Nations Anti-Torture Committee for ten years, visited my studio and bought it on the spot. It is on the front cover of his newly published book Tackling Torture.

 

 

It was similar with the piece, The Hand of Fannie Storr. I finished it and the CEO of the Gloucestershire NHS Trust Hospitals purchased it. It is now in the Cheltenham Hospital Educational Centre as a memorial to the first Director of Nurse Training.

 

 

I use a technique called carving direct, which follows the grain, form and colour of the stone. Consequently every piece is different. But there is also a strange convergence where circumstances, my personal life and faith as well as the stone all come together in synergy. It’s this that I love the most. My goal is to reach increasingly higher levels of skill alongside this convergence. My work is usually aesthetically pleasing regardless of the theme, as I feel this brings hope.

 

 

I have been a professional since 2015 and have won several awards, for example the International Spiritual Art Award (3D category) in 2023, the Ashburner Sculpture Prize in 2022 and the Southwest Academy of Fine and Applied Arts Sculpture Prize and Guest Judges Award in 2020.

 

 

I am based at Gloucester City Works, in the United Kingdom where I lead classes and take commissions.

 

Deborah Harrison invites you to follow on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and X.

 

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