the plaster bust collection

Contemporary re-interpretations of the 18th and 19th century portrait bust, these plaster busts are direct casts from sculptures which I've created from real-life materials and objects.

Rather than sculpting the cloth, hair and lace as in traditional busts, I made costumes from real materials and then cast from these, the plaster picking up all the textured detail of the original

As the collection has developed I've started to look closely at historical head dress and my research led me to the intriguing 18th century fad of decorating hats with very large scale, incongrous objects - famously Marie Antoinette adorned a hat with a huge ship in full sail. I've introduced the idea in this sculpture collection, placing architectural monuments, iconic landmarks along with random objects on the hats and costumes.

The busts are available in white or grey plaster.

These are just the first in what is an on-going collection with updates on my blog where you can also see posts about the making of the sculptures:

kathy dalwood studio blog:
Making plaster busts
More plaster busts