Alwen Harris
ALWEN HARRIS Artist Profile
Alwen Harris studied at the City & Guilds Art School in Kennington, where she met Rolf in the 1950s. She subsequently enrolled at the Royal College of Art in London, where she studied sculpture under the tutelage of the renowned artist, John Skeaping. Here, she specialised in life-size animal sculpture cast in ciment fondu, before winning a scholarship to continue her studies for an extra year at the sculpture school. Even as a student, Alwen received acclaim for her work, winning the Feodora Gleichen award for sculpture and selling many of her drawings and sculptures during her diploma exhibition.
On leaving college, Alwen set up a studio for herself in Maida Vale, where she continued to work on her life-size sculptures. Alwen and Rolf were married in the church opposite and the wedding reception was held around a life-size sculpture of a tiger in progress in her studio!
Inevitably, as Rolfs TV career progressed in the early years of marriage, Alwen was able to allocate less and less time to her own artistic path, mainly due to travelling the world. However, she is delighted to have been able to return to her work recently, focusing primarily on her sculpture, which has previously been exhibited to great acclaim at the Royal Academy.
In recent years, Alwen has also been learning jewellery making and has combined this new skill with her knowledge of cutting and polishing gemstones to create unique contemporary pieces. She regularly wears her own work, which she originally resolved to learn how to make because she could never find interesting large jewellery pieces in the shops!
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