Polly Thelwall is a sculptor who also sketches, draws, and paints. She grew up in Northern Ireland and graduated from Edinburgh College of art in 1993 with a degree in Sculpture. The study of the natural world underpins all her work. She gathers sketches, research, thoughts and feelings into a sculpture or drawing. This coalesces in her whole self and comes to the surface through the urge to make in both mind and body. Her study includes experience that cannot be seen with the eyes. Her interest extends both into the unconscious and into the layers beneath, of soil and rock, of water and sea. She uses small scale casting, modelling, stitching, papier mache, found objects and painting in her sculpture. Last year she completed her first completely biodegradable sculptures.

See Polly’s work as part of our annual Summer open call, Something in the Mirage, which runs July 17th to August 8th, featuring an incredible collection of works by twenty nine artists inspired by the dreamlike shimmering of summer sunshine, heat hazes, lingering afterimages, or maybe the momentary glint of something half-seen and half-imagined in the dappled golden light.

Hi Polly! Can you tell us how your artistic journey started?
I began as a kid with plasticine and crayons and kept going. We also had pictures and books of artists at home, and I really liked some of those.

Can you walk us through your creative process?
This starts with my hands. Perhaps there is an idea in the background, like the title of an exhibition or a subject the work needs to connect to. Hands begin to make a mark on paper or to play with a material if I’m making a sculpture. I am very focused in an almost meditative way. Thought is in the background of my creative process. It is in researching and thinking about the context for the piece of work or preparation and experimentation with materials. Once I begin, I can work up to the point before it feels like I have fallen into making a fixed pattern. I follow my intuitive sense and usually work on several pieces at the same time as often I spend repeated short amounts of time on each piece. This is usually about 45 minutes although with some sculptures I become more lost in the process and can spend hours on something. I also follow my intuitive sense about when a piece is finished.

How do you overcome creative blocks?
If there is something creative and small that you can do follow that. I sketched and was able to keep that up a bit over the years when I was blocked. I also went to exhibitions and was inspired by other people’s art. If there is one thing I would go back and tell my younger self it would be: start doing new things no matter what or how tiny, you will open up your ability to connect with your artist self and it will come back.

What do you do to keep motivated and interested in your work?
I keep sketching and often I research new materials or ways of working. It’s not simple even though I know I am an artist, and I know I love it; I still can’t force creation. I also do internal process drawings, maybe like a visual journal although more random than that. I have pieces that take a long time to make and so usually I can set out a clear time and intention and spend a bit of time working on something that isn’t finished. All of these things help me to stay motivated. One of the other things I know is that as a committed artist you need to spend 40% of your time on admin. So, I do have periods where the focus of my time is on submissions, applications and website updates etc.

How has your practice changed over time?
My practice is always evolving. When I look back over my work I can see themes or ways of working that are in one year and then something different happens in the next year. I go through a repeating process of making work, feeling that something needs to change and going through a sort of destructive phase until the next new thing emerges. I remember a beginning version of this process at art college when I had made a plaster head I didn’t like.  I took it out to the car park and chucked in the air until it was in lots of smaller pieces. I used this to make a completely different sculpture.

Are there any upcoming events or additional information you would like the audience to know about? 
I have a sculpture in an exhibition coming up from the 15th-30th August in Edinburgh, Book of Dream. In October I have a week of family pilgrimage following my grandmother’s footsteps in Spain during the Spanish civil war. I will make and take sketchbooks, journals, and notebooks, and use this as a research trip for future work.

Find out more about Polly’s work on her website or on Instagram. Something in the Mirage runs at Six Foot Gallery until August 8th 2025.