Deborah Stern MRSS is a retired member of the Royal Society of Sculptors that she joined in 1993. She worked in the UK and Florida. In London she studied painting with Haas-Heye and sculpture with Jesse Watkins FRSS as well as Adrian Heath at Camden Arts Centre.
"My sculptures are expressions of feelings and I have a deep love affair with my work. I have no pre-conceived ideas about any piece when I start. My unconscious guides me, letting the process take me where it will. I work partly by sight, partly by exploring the surfaces by touch.
I started my career as a painter, but switched to sculpture as I had a strong desire for the direct touch and contact with the material that expresses my work. I find the sensuousness of soft damp clay very exciting, as well as the gentle resistance of the plaster that I am carving. Cast into bronze the pieces become enhanced by the coloured patina and the warm glow of the polished metal.
I frequently discover startling similarities between the forms I have created and natural objects, reminding me of the truth of Oscar Wilde's famous dictum that "nature imitates art".
If I can use a simple purity of form in my sculpture to express the joy of life, then I have succeeded."
