Biography
Hazel's life-long activism weaves its way through her artistic practice. Her passion is for telling stories in bronze of struggles for social justice and redressing the lack of women represented, one statue at a time. A statue must be a catalyst for change.
Bronze public commissions are what you probably know her for, such as Sir Nigel Gresley at King’s Cross Station; the women biscuit factory workers – ‘Cracker Packers’ – in Carlisle; suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst in Manchester, winner of the prestigious Marsh Award for Excellence in Public Sculpture; suffragist Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy for Congleton; bronze bust of Sir John Manduell, founder of the Royal Northern College of Music; and the forthcoming statue of Ada Nield Chew, for Crewe.
But Hazel's artistic practice is never static, transitioning towards a more fluid multi-disciplinary, site-responsive nature-immersed practice. At the heart remains story-telling - telling stories of hope, of place, of burgeoning biodiversity.
Hazel sculpts with clay, soil, wood, other natural artefacts. But also sculpts with more ephemeral materials, creating sonic journeys drawn from the rhythms and musicality of the sounds of nature, such as in Bird Hide. And through movement, where dancers respond to these sonic journeys, as explored in her Sculptural Murmurings projects and her recent project Wild Grooves Silent Disco, a collaboration with Axel Wild at Fabrica Gallery.
The development of Hazel's practice has been through residencies (Knepp Wildlands; CampFr, Pyrenees; Fabrica Gallery, Brighton) and collaborative projects, often with Arts Council England funding. Hazel is the 2026 winner of the Eilean Shona artist residency in the Hebrides.
Hazel is also a member of the Wildlife Sound Recording Society and her field recordings are being acquired by the British Library Sound Archives.