"Constructive Rest" (2025)

Ceramic (paper clay, terra sigillata, colored pencil)
79 x 35 x 25 inches

It is through intimate encounters with particular people that we become capable of extending our empathy to humanity on a broader scale. Gibson’s work reflects this opening up from the specific to the universal, for in addition to making carefully observed portrait sculptures, Gibson sculpts less specific, invented bodies that illustrate states of contemplation, dream, or surrender.

By sculpting portraits of specific individuals at a scale close to that of a living human body, Gibson opens the possibility for encounters wherein emotions, remembered experiences, or mysterious information pass from her objects to her viewers. Her sculptures begin, proceed, and end as exchanges of intimacies. The purpose of these sculptures is to help awaken people’s narrative and imaginative capacities.

Thank you to my incredible teachers in the RISD Illustration department. Fritz Drury, Fred Lynch, Nicholas Palermo, Jean Blackburn, Melissa Ferreira - you all have become the voices in my head as I work.

Building in clay at a large scale requires community support! I am grateful to the many friends and colleagues who have helped me transport this piece during its brief lifetime.

sophie_gibson_studio, sophiegibson.art