Poppy graduated from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2016 and trained in figurative sculpture at The Florence Academy of Art in Italy. During her time in Florence, Poppy was awarded a QEST Finnis Scott Foundation Scholarship, a Leverhulme Trust Study Abroad Studentship and the Academy’s Graduate in Residence Prize for sculpture. In 2021, she won her first public commission: two-metre bronze monuments of Her Majesty The Queen and Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh. These will be installed on The Royal Albert Hall’s South Porch façade in 2023.
Poppy combines traditional sculpting techniques with a painterly application of clay and bold, expressive gestures to bring her subjects to life. She layers clay and conversations to create vibrant surfaces, capturing the intangible essence of her subjects by building the sculptures from the inside out.
“Stories and bodies have always seemed intertwined to me, and I sculpt from life whenever possible. I have found that capturing that intangible thing, a kind of iconography of moments that someone else might call an essence, presence, or spirit, requires as much listening as modelling of form.”
