How I Got Here: Wilfrid Wood, sculptor

In the run up to It’s Nice That’s annual symposium, Here 2016, we have been introducing each speaker who will appear at the event. We have asked each of them to share an early piece of work and a recent project, to reflect on how they’ve progressed between the two. For the final article in the series we speak to sculptor Wilfrid Wood.

London-based sculptor Wilfrid Wood trained in graphics at Central St Martins before a friend got him a job building latex heads for satirical TV programme Spitting Image. From there he embarked on his artistic career, and his charismatic and quirky sculptures have since been exhibited the world over. Wilfrid has created likenesses of a variety of people including Angela Merkel, Wayne Rooney and his father, and Paul McCartney, and all of his work is made entirely by hand.

Flat Man, 1978

What is the work?
A superhero made of cardboard, it was made while junk modelling at school.

What did you learn while doing it?
I learned that an inanimate object can have personality.

What do you think of it now?
I find it mildly irritating.

How does it relate to your current work?
It’s figurative, sculptural and static, just as my work is now.

Connor Newall, 2016

What is the work?
A plasticine head of the model Connor Newall.

Why was it created?
I’m doing a series called Plasticine Models.

What would you tell your younger self about this work?
One day you’ll grow up to like big pink ears on a man.

As well as Wilfrid Wood, Here 2016 speakers include artist Bob and Roberta Smith, photographer Nadav Kander, design director of The New York Times Magazine Gail Bichler, illustrator Malika Favre and visual artist Yolanda Domínguez.

We will also be welcoming creative director at MTV Richard Turley, co-founder of Turner-prize winning collective Assemble, Joe Halligan and Omar Sosa and Marco Velardi, art director and editor-in-chief of Apartamento magazine.