Discipline
Abstract
Architectural / Monumental / Relief
Installation / Land / Site-specific
Material
Bronze
Found Objects
Glass
Mixed media
Steel
Wood/Paper
Region
London
Biography
Constructing in various materials including wood, steel, Perspex and rope, Sheila explores line, form, space, rhythm and mood within a systematic process of making. She references architecture, natural systems, and our physical and emotional relationship to these. Her working method responds directly to material and space. She constructs her sculpture in a modular rhythm of replicated changing units; both opening and containing space, searching to express the inside/outside pull of energy and emotion. Added colour accentuates these elements creating rhythm and energy to the ever-changing views.
London based since postgraduate Sculpture studies St. Martin's School of Art, Sheila works from A.P.T Studios, Deptford, (www.aptstudios.org), where she was a founding member. She is Sculpture Program Manager at Morley College London and is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors, (www.sculptors.org.uk/artists/sheila-vollmer).
Vollmer has exhibited widely in the U.K. and featured in group exhibitions in Ireland, Holland, Italy, Taiwan, Germany, Canada and USA. Solo exhibitions & commissions include ‘Sine Line’, Public Sculpture Commission, Milton Keynes, 2020; Artist of the Day (solo show), Flowers Gallery Central, London W1 2015 and Sheila Vollmer, The Atrium, Cooper's & Lybrand, London WC1 1997.
Recent and noteworthy exhibitions include:
Thames-Side Studios Gallery: A Push or a Pull, curated by Alexandra Baraitser (2024); Reveal, Morley College Printmaking & Sculpture Staff exhibition, Morley Gallery, London SE1 (2024); Talking Sculpture: Dialects of Making, TSM (G Brent, A Harley & S Vollmer) @ Vessel Gallery, York St John University, Exhibition and Symposium with Yorkshire based artists, Charlotte Cullen, Katrina Cowling and Hannah Honeywill, (Symposium guest speaker Griselda Pollock) York (2023-24); Colour 2023, Burghley House, Stamford, Lincs. (catalogue); TSM presents ‘Still Here – Women Making Abstract Sculpture’, exhibition & Artists Q&A, Gillian Brent, Alexandra Harley, Jill Gibson and Sheila Vollmer with guests Anna Reading & Beatrice Galletley, APT Gallery, Deptford London; Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2018, curated by Grayson Perry, Royal Academy, W1; Chelsea Flower Show 2018, 2 sculptures commissioned for VTB Spirit of Cornwall garden, (silver gilt medal winner); Cass Sculpture Fdn, Maquette exhibition, Goodwood, West Sussex, 2016-17; International Exhibition of Wood Sculpture, Wood Sculpture Museum Taiwan 2012; London Bridge City Sculpture (2 sculptures on riverside walkway by Hay’s Galleria London) 2011-12; Spitalfields Public Art, Spitalfields Market, London, 2009-10; Steel, Sculpture in the Workplace curated by Ann Elliott for Canary Wharf, London 2006; Thinking Big: 21st Cent. British Sculpture, Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy, 2003.
Awards include the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Public & private collections include: Integral Powertrain Ltd Milton Keynes, The Prudential plc London and Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Staffs.
Instagram @sheilavollmer