Objects of Solace - Vicky McAlpine

Copper figures on oak base
Series I - XII
17 x 6 x 6cm approx
£225 each
 
 
Vicky McAlpine
Falmouth University, MA Fine Art
 
I am a sculptor working primarily with copper, a material whose capacity for transformation mirrors the emotional terrain of my practice. Soft yet enduring, copper bears the marks of touch, oxidising and changing over time. It records encounters, carrying traces of contact, care, and duration. I am drawn to its ability to hold contradiction: strength and fragility, permanence and change, resilience and vulnerability.
 
Working predominantly with the human figure, I am concerned with states of longing, loss, isolation, and connection. The body becomes a vessel through which these experiences are held and communicated—an imperfect, vulnerable form through which we encounter ourselves and one another. My sculptures emerge from personal experience, yet they are shaped by the wider conditions of contemporary life: a world marked by uncertainty, division, and the persistent search for belonging.
 
Objects of Solace is an ongoing series of small copper figures made as companions. They are orienting objects for unsettled times; quiet presences that sit between talisman and witness. Created with the intention of being held, they draw upon ancient traditions of figurative objects carried for protection, comfort, remembrance, and hope.
 
Touch is central to the work. These sculptures are made to be warmed by the hand, carried in a pocket, returned to in moments of unease. Through handling, their surfaces slowly change, accumulating the traces of those who live with them. In this way, the work remains unfinished, completed through encounter.
 
Their modest scale is deliberate. Against the vastness of contemporary crises, they offer something intimate: an invitation to pause, to hold, to care. Small gestures become acts of resistance. Tenderness becomes a way of remaining present.
 
I think of these figures as repositories for uncertainty, grief, affection, and resilience. They do not offer answers. Instead, they create space for reflection and connection, asking how we might remain open to one another in difficult times, and what forms of care might help us imagine gentler futures.