Almuth Tebbenhoff is inspired by process: she loves the way objects of beauty and intrigue can emerge from a noisy session cutting and welding steel, sparks flying in every sense, or from a quieter but no less messy afternoon pushing wet clay around.

It's the simple fact of working with her hands to distil from dull, reluctant matter pieces that are always interesting, always challenging, invariably searching, frequently witty, often profound, and sometimes breathtakingly lovely. It is this physical labour of art that draws her restless spirit to sculpture.

She was born in Fürstenau in north-west Germany. In 1969, a year after completing her secondary schooling, she moved to England where she studied ceramics at the Sir John Cass School of Art from 1972 to 1975. Following that, she set up a studio in London and for the next six years made studio ceramics, while she developed her ideas for sculpture.

In 1981, Almuth Tebbenhoff established her Southfields studio in a former church hall. At first she worked in clay and wood, but in 1986 she started a two-year course in metal fabrication at South Thames College, London.

Her early pieces were monochrome — mostly grey — abstract explorations of space and volume through geometric devices. Since the early nineties, Almuth has been moving towards a freer mode of expression, creating explosive forms in bright colours through a steady evolution of processes, investigating her current themes of light, space and the origins of matter.

GROUP & SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

1983 Emslandmuseum, Schloß Clemenswerth, Germany

1990 Before Sculpture — Sculptors' Drawings, New York Studio School, New York, USA

1993 International Art Centre, Poznan, Poland

1994 Petrified, Installation on matter in space at Jodrell Bank Science Centre, Cheshire

1995 In an Ideal World, Alternative Arts, London

2001 Royal British Society of Sculptors, London

2005 RBS Sculpture exhibition in Leicester Botanical Gardens

Fe2O5 exhibition of steel sculpture at Myles Meehan Gallery, Darlington

2006 STEEL group exhibition at 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf

2006 All Female Cast Gallery Pangolin exhibition

Short biography

1972-5 Studied ceramics at Sir John Cass School of Art, London

1981 Converted church hall to studio in London

1986-8 Metal fabrication classes at South Thames College, London

1991 Award from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York

1993-95 Part-time lecturer at Loughborough College of Art and Design, Loughborough, Leicestershire

1998 Commission: several sculptures for Goodwood

1999-2005 Weekly life drawing classes inspired by Cecil Collins

2002 Elected Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors

2003 Short-listed for Battle of Britain Memorial in Central London.

2004 Arts Council England Grant for Sculpture Installation at the Cafe Gallery, Bermondsey, London

2006 Fondazione Sem Scholarship, working with marble in Pietrasanta, Lucca, Italy