Lea Ferris

Born Boston, USA

Lives & Works Sydney (Eora)

Lea Ferris combines her love of Australia’s ancient geological story with its extraordinary native ecosystems and her love of working with marble.

For Ferris, the world of the coral reefs is more wondrous and spectacular than our wildest imaginings. Her masterful sculptures convey the magic of this hallucinogenic, kaleidoscopic world, yet also a hint of the danger to the life of the reef. The ephemeral nature of the coral in a time of climate change is paradoxically captured in the permanence of marble, evoking a sense of fossilisation.

More recently, her work has evolved into abstract forms, in bronze and in marble, which seek to express her feelings about our uncertain, rapidly changing, exciting, and frightening times.

She sees our ‘now’ as a period of liminality - of being on the threshold - the old world is rapidly fading and the new is as yet unknown.

Lea Ferris works in Sydney, Australia and Pietrasanta, Italy (near Carrara). Her work is held in many significant collections in Australia and internationally.