Anna Gillespie (Honorary Member)

Anna Gillespie is a contemporary figurative sculptor whose intensely emotional representations of the human form are made from materials as diverse as masking tape, bronze, found objects, clay, and fabric impregnated with plaster.  Her work varies in scale from life-sized figures to more intimate and domestic pieces. 

Gillespie’s current work continues to be largely concerned with the human body as it has been throughout her career.  But the focus of interest is now hollowness and fissure rather than solidity and mass as it was previously.  The elements of life casting in many of her current pieces are a homage to the beauty of the body even at the same time as it is depicted in a degraded state.  The dichotomy of beauty and disgust are held in close proximity.

Anna’s current studio, deep in the Wiltshire countryside, is also a place of contradictions.  It is based in an old paper mill in the village of Slaughterford and the site is now very run down – although being carefully renovated into workshops by its current owners.  In the deep quiet of the valley the beautifully decayed industrial buildings sit cheek by jowl with a picturesque stream running through the exquisitely wooded valley.

The site works well with Anna’s frequent use of dis-guarded and now rusty steel remnants from the past, found objects from nature such as twigs, acorns and feathers, and her increasing use of plaster – which is often considered to be a base sculptural material but which, due to its very cheapness, offers the possibility for experimentation at scale which Anna is now undertaking.

Anna is a Royal West of England Academician and has exhibited for many years with Beaux Arts in Bath and formally in London.  Her work is in many private collections across the world.