We are delighted to share that BA (Hons) Fine Art Graduate Sophie Lloyd has been chosen as the first recipient of the Anthony Caro Sculpture Prize. The award was gifted to the Art School earlier this year as one of two initiatives to support Fine Art students with a practice focused on sculpture.
Sophie’s art practice employs sugar, fondant icing and lead to create stained-glass characters, and is an exploration of consumerism, gluttony and entertainment. ‘The Live Show’, displayed at the Degree Show from 24-30 June, brings together 22 individual, fairground-like caricatures, displayed along with silicone javelins.
Paul Moorhouse, Chief Executive of the Anthony Caro Centre 2020-2023, commended Sophie and her fellow students:
“We were impressed by the standard of the students’ work. The school’s ethos of involvement with materials – both as a starting point and as essential to the creative process – was, we felt, entirely sympathetic to the work of Anthony Caro, whose achievements as a sculptor so deepened a wider understanding of what art is, and, more importantly, can be. That legacy, we believe, is in safe hands at City and Guilds of London Art School.
Among so much talent, Sophie’s work stood out because of her entirely distinctive engagement with materials. Her use of coloured fondant sugar and metal is surprising, witty and expressive: highly original, yet steeped in traditional practice. We particularly liked her combination of caricature, fairground imagery and references to leaded glass. We also admired her ability to infuse apparently light-hearted imagery with more profound implications, not least the way that change in her work’s appearance so effectively evokes the passage of time.”
Congratulations Sophie!