“I think about my work as telling stories,” states UK-born and based sculptor Ann Carrington. “I have a story in my head I want to tell. The materials I choose have to express that.” With a prolific career already spanning decades, Carrington has built a serious reputation, recognized by artists and collectors from around the world, with major fans in finance, fashion, design, including Queen Elizabeth II herself.

Trained as a painter at the Royal College of Art, Carrington developed a style and process that blurs traditional craftsmanship with contemporary themes. Her work explores ideas of beauty, utility, and decay, as she repurposes ordinary objects such as cutlery, buttons, and denim that she discovers at fairs, antiques shops, and junk stores. She transforms them into complex sculptures that challenge viewers’ perceptions. “It’s good when someone does a double take and looks at something they pass every day in a completely new light,” explains Carrington. “It helps draw people into the work when there is something familiar about it, yet extraordinary as well.”

Her work is often striking. But as Carrington puts it, having something beautiful is not the goal. “I’m not interested in ‘craft’. That said, I do like the maker’s hand to be evident. See where the weld is, where is the cut, where it isn’t smooth.”

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WRITTEN BY STEPHEN DANDROW

This story appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of MILIEU.