Kendra Haste MRSS: Big Bad Wolf
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Sculpture
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Film - Drawing with Wire
Made by Bill mudge and Daniel ReddingCommissioned by the Ornamental Cast Iron Museum in Büdelsdorf, Germany, to accompany Kendra Haste’s solo exhibition ‘Big Bad Wolf’, running from May to November 2025.
In the film, Kendra reflects on her artistic practice, the themes of rewilding and conservation, and the process behind creating eleven new sculptures for her first solo museum exhibition.
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Kendra in Conversation with Matt Lippiatt
Big Bad Wolf. May 2025Matt Lippiatt: This exhibition presents a new group of your sculptures, commissioned by the Ornamental Cast Iron Museum and displayed throughout the museum. How did the project come about?Kendra Haste: The museum approached me through the Society of British Sculptors. My animal subjects and my use of material appealed to them because the wire I use is made from mild steel, a derivative of iron ore, so there’s a direct connection with the cast iron works in the museum collection.ML: What are the themes of this new body of work?KH: It’s about exploring our attitude towards animals, and specifically the subjects of rewilding, conservation and biodiversity. The title of the exhibition is Big Bad Wolf. I think wolves generally get a bad press, going back to the Grimm’s fairy tales and fables of old, and I want to question that idea of the “big bad wolf”. In Germany, wolves have been reintroduced – in fact, they have naturally migrated over the border from Poland and have established a growing population. That’s causing problems for sheep farmers, and in the press the issue has become very politicised unfortunately. There is some opposition to the idea of rewilding in general, and many would like to see the wolves out of Germany, which is a real pity. So, the question of the “big bad wolf” is still current: is the wolf a threat to us, or do they help us in terms of restoring the function of predation in the ecosystem, self-regulating landscapes and increasing biodiversity?ML: The animal species you represent in this exhibition are local to Germany. How do you see the relationship between these sculptures and this location, and the museum itself as a frame for the work?KH: In this exhibition my work will be an intervention alongside the museum’s displays of decorative iron work. There are links to animals throughout the museum, with animal forms appearing often as decorative motifs. There is also a nineteenth-century hunting room, with animal heads presented as trophy heads on the wall. The museum’s collection is reflective of our changing relationship with animals and nature, through the ages.All of my sculptures represent the animals at life size, and scale is very important in this exhibition. Architecturally the museum is a series of quite confined intimate rooms, and there are a lot of small deer bronzes in the collection, so having my life size sculptures of red deer in this space draws attention to their scale. They are surprisingly large animals, physically powerful and requiring space.ML: Will all of your sculptures be inside the museum?KH: Most of my sculptures will be inside the display rooms, but the wolf sculptures will be outside in the courtyard. The placement of the sculptures creates a sense of movement because the animals are positioned as if they are all walking around in the same direction, like a parade through the museum. Visitors will be able to walk amongst the sculptures, they won’t be kept at a distance. The museum wants the visitors to be confronted with the animals, to give a sense of their physical presence and power. It is as if we are giving the animals dominion over the museum.ML: Like during the Covid lockdowns, when wild animals began to venture into urban areas that would usually be crowded with people.KH: That was extraordinary, wasn’t it? Deer roaming empty roads.ML: Animals are a consistent theme in your work, and you’ve also consistently used wire mesh as a sculptural material. What is the relationship between these two aspects of your practice?KH: I started using mesh when I was in my final year at art college – thirty years ago! Animals have always held a deep fascination with me. I was doing a lot of drawings at London Zoo, so I think subliminally the wire cages that I was drawing the animals through may have influenced me. The choice to work with mesh for as long as I have is an aesthetic decision, but the fact that it’s also a material associated with caging, for sure, has a bearing on the subject of wild animals, captivity, and our relationship with the “wild” world.ML: You study the anatomy of the animals that you sculpt, and your sculptures have a level of anatomical accuracy that is unlike other more stylised and expressionistic representations in modern and contemporary art.KH: I love the scientific side of learning about anatomy. For my MA I studied natural history illustration at the Royal College of Art. That was wonderful, involving lots of time spent at the Natural History Museum with behind-the-scenes access to the collections there. We were encouraged to look really closely at form and all the internal mechanics of animals. Skeletons fascinate me, and locomotion, all that stuff. I also love all the early illustrations, the work of biologists, and that inspires my own work.
That said, I also try not to let anatomical accuracy overwhelm the process of creating sculptures. I will alter certain proportions slightly if it adds more of a sense of animation. I’m trying to convey something of the character of the animal, so there are a lot of decisions that I’ll make judging by eye rather than measuring for precise accuracy. It has to read right visually, with a spark of life. It’s great when a sculpture starts to create the sense that I’m sharing the studio with another being and it has its own presence and character.ML: Is it unusual for you to make a group of works like this for a single project?KH: Previously I have made a menagerie of animals for the Tower of London, which is on permanent display there. Those sculptures tell the story of the animals that were kept at the tower over the centuries. As with Big Bad Wolf, the Tower of London sculptures are reflective of our changing attitude towards animals.I really enjoy working on projects involving groups of works. As a professional artist I generally work to commission, so typically I’m making one piece at a time for clients. Sometimes bigger groups, but more often single pieces. Practically, it’s very difficult to set aside a year to develop a larger body of work, so when an opportunity like this comes along, it’s fantastic.ML: Your use of wire mesh as a sculptural material is very unusual. What is it about this material that you like?KH: I enjoy the linear aesthetic of wire, it simulates line drawing in three dimensions, the mesh is like cross-hatching, and it has a graphite quality in its form and colour. I find with other materials, cast bronze pieces of animals for example, there is something rather cold and dead. With the wire mesh the holes allow some visibility of the layering underneath the surface, creating a sense of the muscle and bone of the body, not just its surface shape. I also like that, by necessity, I am making the animals from the inside out.
In Big Bad Wolf, all the animals have a steel structure inside, apart from the boarlets. Those internal structures act as a core on top of which I make a crude skeleton, shoulder blades and so on. Then I build up the muscle groups, folding the wire mesh into shapes and sewing them onto the skeleton. It’s a really slow laborious process, very much rooted in anatomy.. The wire is also incredibly versatile in the effects it can create. For example, birds are very different from mammals and when the mesh is used to create plumage, it has the lightness of a feather, with light coming through, so it looks feasible that the bird could fly off. If the same form were cast in bronze, that effect wouldn’t be possible at all.ML: Could you say more about Big Bad Wolf’s theme of rewilding? In another interview you mentioned something called “the three C’s”.KH: The three C’s model is often used in rewilding approaches. The three C’s are: Core wilderness areas, Corridors, and Carnivores. The idea is that there should be core wilderness areas across Europe, left completely wild, with corridors linking those areas within countries and between countries, providing safe passage for animals. The third C, carnivores, are the missing species, necessary to keep the other animal populations healthily balanced. Landscapes have been transformed by successful rewilding projects, particularly in the USA, in places like the Yellowstone Park. Obviously, they have a lot more space there. This model has been adapted in more densely populated areas to Cores, Connectivity and Co-existence, with more of an emphasis on connection between people and nature and the beneficial need to co-exist and live alongside nature.In Europe, and here in the UK, there are huge challenges with farmland and dense populations rubbing up against wildlife. But if the areas are chosen well, rewilding absolutely can work, and we need to do it because biodiversity is at an absolute low and it’s our life support system. If it’s not addressed and we lose it, it’s gone. Food, water, climate control, medicine, everything depends on a healthy ecosystem.ML: How do these concerns inform the way you approach representing animals in your sculptures?KH: My intention is to depict animals in their own right and observed without too much of our human projections imposed onto them. Hopefully giving the animal subjects a sense of their own agency and power.When animals are the subject for your artwork, there’s always a fine line you tread- you want to avoid the work being over sentimental or cliched. The spikiness of the wire helps because people are less likely to want to touch or stroke the sculptures. Hopefully they are appreciated for their beauty and strong physicality, but the fact that they are spiky to touch is relevant to them being wild animals, not domesticated; they deserve respect and a little caution – you wouldn’t want to over handle the pieces. By capturing something of their instinctive nature and vigour, the audience will hopefully question and reflect on our response to wild animals.ML: Today, one of the challenges in art, and also in journalism and documentary film making, is how to honestly address the urgent problems in our relationship to the natural world, without falling into hopelessness.KH: Absolutely, it can be overwhelmingly depressing. On the positive side, there is the fact that these wild animals are surviving in pockets at the moment, and there are rewilding and reintroduction programs out there gaining momentum with real successes.In my own work I hope that by portraying animals in their natural state, it will encourage people to think about what a ‘wild’ animal is, what they need to survive and how vital biodiversity is. It’s about posing the question of how we coexist with nature, now and in the future.Matt Lippiatt, artist and freelance writer - May 2025 -
Biography
KENDRA IS AN MA GRADUATE FROM THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART, LONDON AND A MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF SCULPTORS
Work in public institutions:Ornamental Cast Iron Museum, Büdelsdorf, Germany
National Museum of Wildlife Art, WyomingTower of London
Cannon Hall Museum, Barnsley
London Underground at Waterloo Station, London
2025
Big Bad Wolf - Ornamental Cast Iron Museum, Büdelsdorf, Germany - solo exhibition
2024
Homo Faber Biennale, Venice (invited artist)
2020
50 Women Sculptors, published by Aurora Metro with an introduction by Dr Joanna Sperryn-Jones
2017
Elected to the Royal British Society of Sculptors (MRSS)
Sculpt AT Kew, Contemporary Outdoor Sculpture exhibition, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
2016
Bison Head purchased by the National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, Wyoming, USA
Let's Dance! Animals: Art and Design, Chimei Museum, Tainan, Taiwan - group show2013
Cannon Hall Museum, Barnsley, gifted two sculptures from the Eric and Jean Cass Collection, Rhinoceros (2001) and Juvenile Baboon (2003)
2012
Elected a signature member of the Society of Animal Artists, USA
Historic Royal Palaces project for the Tower of London nominated for the 2012 Marsh Award
2010
Historic Royal Palaces commission for the Tower of London. Thirteen sculptures celebrate the history of the Royal Menagerie. Subjects include Barbary lions, Hamadryas baboons, a Polar bear, and an African elephant
2003
NDUTU, Davies & Tooth, London - solo show
NDUTU, Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham - solo show
Elephant Relief purchased by London Underground for Waterloo Station
2002
Adapt NOW, Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum, Glasgow - group show
Tigers, Frankfurt Zoo, Frankfurt - group show
Leaping Tiger Reliefs, installed at Harvey Nichols, London - solo show.
2001
New Sculpture, Beaux Arts, Bath - solo show
Tigers, Zeist Castle, Zeist - group show
Wild Tigers of Bandhavgarh, Burrell Collection, Glasgow - group show
Three Generations of Sculptors, Beaux Arts, Bath - group show
2000
Underground Safari, Gloucester Road, London - solo show
Tigers, Artists for Nature in India, hardback book published by Enmerc
Young British Sculptors, Beaux Arts, Bath - group show
1999
Baboon, BBC Wildlife Art Award for sculpture
Nature, Collier Bristow, London - group show
1998
Residency, Lisbon School of Art
Residency, RSBP Minsmere Reserve, Suffolk
Parnham House, Beaminster - solo show
RCA Graduate Show, RSPB Minsmere Reserve, Suffolk
Graduate Multimedia Show, Candid Arts Trust, London
Daler Rowney Illustration Award, RCA MA Degree Show
MA Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London
1997
Artist for Nature Foundation Award. Expedition to the Bandhavgarh National Park, India
Art of the Rainforest, Gloucester (with Nature in Art) - group show
1996-98
Royal College of Art, MA Natural History Illustration
1995-2025
Society of Wildlife Artists Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London
1990-93
Camberwell College of Art, BA (Hons) Illustration
1989-90
Wimbledon School of Art, Foundation Course
