Zara Ramsay

Zara Ramsay is a mixed media artist working largely in sculpture. Born in Essex, now living and working in London, her works draw on the ambivalent feelings she has towards contemporary objects- their allure continually wrestling against their frivolity, especially when compared to the natural world. Using her practice as a kind of quasi ethnography on her own society she explores how we use these objects in an attempt to give meaning to our lives and role they play in shaping our values, both on an individual and societal level.

Always with a touch of humour, Ramsay abstracts and combines elements from these objects with details from natural phenomena, resulting in daftly confident domestic monuments, or ‘minuments’. In her works, details become enlarged in a serious wonderland of scale - where physical weight is undermined through a conflation of rough with soft and heavy with light. The outcome builds with an incongruity of materials, colours and forms, resulting in a kind of humanist minimalism. 

Allusions to energy fields and spiritual matters, ecological concerns and folk-culture are integral to the creations and at the heart of Ramsay’s practice is a philosophy of spirituality and mindfulness to be found in this intersection between ourselves and the things that surround us.

Since receiving her BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins (2016) Ramsay has continued to develop her practice independently whilst developing technical skills through studio placements including those at Troy Town Pottery, Aarron Angell’s ceramic studio and Peter Layton Glass Blowing.