SARA BAMFORD
Sculpture
Artists Statement
In my work I aim to catch a moment in time, an emotion, an energy.
I love figurative classical sculpture and find the marriage of steel and the human form very exciting.
Steel is so beautiful if hammered, heated and conquered. To catch that moment using steel is my aim. Simple really, but technically quite challenging both with knowledge of anatomy and the manipulation of the steel.
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Sara studied at Farnham School of Art 1963 - 1966 and then sculpture at The Slade School of Art 1966 – 1969 exhibiting with The Young Contemporaries in 1968.
She won a scholarship to study sculpture in La Jolla San Diego 1969 but travelled instead in the Middle East, Morocco, America and Canada for the next few years before settling down to marriage, two children and building a carpet repair business on the Welsh borders.
During this time she drew and made cartoon sketches and in her 40’s started making wire sculpture in a similar vein to her sketches, these were very linear works and around 1995 she started using tin and steel in her sculptures, enabling her to make more solid forms.
A short spell at Hereford Technical college as an infill student in the late 1990’s helped her set up a proper workshop and taught her the delights of using a plasma cutter; making the cutting of flat sheet and the altering of solid welded forms like cutting butter with a knife. Some recent welding lessons have greatly improved her technical abilities on thin steel and a short bronze casting course opened up new possibilities.
Recently she attended a TIG welding course which makes the welding of such thin steel much easier than Oxy Acetylene and exhibited at the Thompsons Gallery London.
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