About Lawrence Dicks

Lawrence Dicks (b. 1969) graduated in 1998 from Plymouth University Exeter (Exeter School of Art and Design). Dicks knew from early on in his artistic practice that sculpture would be his medium, enjoying the physicality that working with sculpture demands. At university he was inspired by some of the great sculptors of the twentieth century.

Heavily influenced by nature, Lawrence takes natural phenomena in general, and cellular structure in particular, amongst his sources of inspiration. Living on the Sussex coast, daily walks to the beach and close observation of the sea and the coastline subconsciously filter through to his work, though it is not about that. There is fluid repetition in Lawrence's sculptures, setting off a rhythm which flows between all works and connects them as a whole. The rhythm of the tide is there together with the eroding effect that sea and time have on rocks, smoothing, hollowing, and pitting their surfaces. 

There is rhythm and repetition, too, in the actual making when a weighty hammer repeatedly hits a chisel and very slowly reveals a form with surfaces of concave or convex undulations and textures; a recognisable visual language that Lawrence has established.

His intention with his work is to make the viewer stop, take a closer look, engage on a deeper level. Lawrence believes that sculpture is able to communicate some ideas better than words, and he utilises his forms to create a moment to pause, contemplate, and reflect, embracing the subjectivity in the responses that different viewers will have to his sculpture.

Lawrence has exhibited widely throughout the UK, has worked on several commissions, and he has work in private and public collections in the UK - notably Churchill College Cambridge and Marchmont House in Scotland - and internationally.