Darlis Lamb, World Renowned Bronze Sculptor's Personal Collection - Bronze Sculpture & Fine Art

Darlis Lamb was a sculptor of still lives and landscapes.  She created in bronze what is usually done in two-dimensional methods.  One of her still lives, French Lesson 4, five individual pears, won the Medal of Honor at the 1998 Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club Show.  Her Zen landscape series share themes of simplicity and serenity and suggest a long journey through life.
Born in Nebraska, she lived her adult life in both Nebraska and Colorado.  Her studio was in Englewood, Colorado, where she conducted art workshops.  She had an M.A. in Fine Arts and was a colleague member of The National Sculpture Society of New York City and a member of the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club.  
Equipped with a master’s degree in fine arts and a background in costume design, printmaking, and painting, Darlis Lamb approaches sculpture with the whimsy and sensitivity of a well-rounded artist. Consequently, her elegant bronze figures, still lifes, and nature pieces represent form and design in the classic sense, but they also transcend their literal representations. “When artists get a story in their mind, the whole piece is inspired,” notes Lamb. For one sculpture, she arranged an ensemble of tiny pears as models. “To some, maybe they’re just a bunch of pears, but to me, they are a choir. It’s all about imagination.”
Bitten by the sculpture bug after taking a series of ceramics courses, Lamb pursued the discipline with fervor, studying with retired orthopedic surgeon and sculptor Wilfred Stedman and with Mexican sculptor Francisco Zúñiga, who advised: “Create what you are from.” The Englewood, CO, artist applies that principle to this day. “All of my sculptures are facets of myself,” she says.
Staying true to her imaginative side, Lamb puts a spin on the traditional still life in pieces like STILL LIFE WITH BIRDS, a bronze featuring two birds pecking at plum parts on the ground. “They have attitude,” says Lamb, who tries to add expression to her nature pieces, anthropomorphizing them. “People will have their own interpretations, and for me, that completes a sculpture.” 

While her work can be described as realistic, much of it approaches superrealism (also known as photorealism), so detailed and complete that the viewer catches a complete sense of the original model. Take a pear from one of her French Lessons series. Indeed, one gallery visitor did try to take the pear, thinking (before she picked it up) that it was a real piece of fruit. Yet Lamb’s intent is not to fool the viewer. Instead she brings to her work a story that may be true or imagined, a weaving of perceptions and feelings that she experiences. She then hopes the viewer creates a story of his own. Her series Bonds in Nature: Birds and Animals highlights her approach. She says, “Almost always, when I am inspired to sculpt a bird or an animal, it is the result of a connection made in some way that creates a bond between myself and a beautiful creature of nature. “Butterscotch (a sculpture of a plump rabbit) was the result of having been caretaker for this pudgy, tame and lovable animal for three and a half weeks, while he modeled for a class I taught at St. Mary’s Academy in Denver. . .For every sculpture, there is a story.” Or consider the piece that features chocolate-dipped strawberries, a brush, and a pot of chocolate. Although rendered in bronze with a patina, the components look yummy enough to eat. Lamb says, “People like strawberries and chocolate, and I wanted to use the brush, too.” She imagined a scenario: someone preparing the dessert for a picnic with the underlying stone as a table, or a family’s children interrupted for refreshments while they were painting.