Sculptor Jilly Sutton MRSS trained at Exeter College of Art. She carves large scale heads and figures, sandblasting and liming to give them their unique, grainy character. Although her work is mainly figurative, often with an overriding sense of serenity, abstraction also features in her collections.
Jilly Sutton's sculptures have been exhibited internationally and are in public and private collections in the UK and abroad and her carved wooden portrait of the former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion is in the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection.
Early in her career, Jilly Sutton’s practice was influenced by time spent in Nigeria, where the art forms that flourish there, particularly carvings and textiles, influenced her practice. Now, her inspiration comes from the ancient trees and woodland that surround her studio and home on the banks of the River Dart in Devon, where she works with locally fallen or felled timber.
"The warmth of wood, the quality of the grain, and the life embodied in each and every tree, together with a veneration of the head as a sculptural form - this is my passion. Working with the vagaries of the organic, still living, nature of the material, and pushing the boundaries of its plasticity, is the constant challenge."