“I’m always intrigued by shadows or ghost images of somebody. When you close your eyes, features of a face or posture often don’t emerge but the ‘essence/soul’ of somebody does.”

Victoria took her sculpture degree at City and Guilds of London Art School in the late 1980s where the emphasis was on a classical training in life drawing and sculpture. She has completed several commissioned bronze portraits, including a life size bronze statue of Rudyard Kipling for Burwash High Street, which was unveiled in February 2019. Her commissioned work has been exhibited with the Society of Portrait Sculptors over several years. Victoria has also recently been elected a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors, she is now Victoria Atkinson MRSS.

With her more abstracted work, Victoria’s focus is on reading the mood or character of a person through posture. Her androgynous figures are captured at the edge of movement with a gentle reminiscent humour present in their body language.

Using wet clay or plaster, she gains a fluidity that condenses a pose to its bare essentials. Through this connection with the land she conjures up a sense of coming from the earth and being part of the natural life cycle. Monoliths and stone circles are evident, a sense of perpetual time and the feeling that something so still can evoke so much power. Although the poses of her sculptures are often static, their stillness has a presence. Often drawn lines are left in the pieces, incorporating a painterly approach to the clay.