RISING STAR DAVID BEGBIE
Evening Standard Magazine November 1993 by Nicholas Drake:

Ten years on from the success of his first one-man show, sculptor David Begbie is being hailed as 'a British Rodin for the Nineties'. When only a handful of sculptors make a living from their work, there's a long waiting-list to buy a Begbie. His extraordinary ability to transform harsh, industrial steel mesh into the soft, curvaceous form of the human body, combining a stark, sexy modernity with classical form, has won him plaudits from art lovers and critics of all persuasions. Begbie was recently elected to the Royal Society of British Sculptors and his work is exhibited worldwide, and in London he has permanent installations in the Primates Gallery at the Natural History Museum, and at City Place and Southwark Bridge. One might, therefore, expect him to have become complacent, cosy in the lucrative niche he has carved out for himself, but not at all.
When Italian fashion maestro Giorgio Armani invited Begbie to unleash his talents on his Emporio Armani store in Brompton Road, Begbie jumped at the challenge. For an artist so interested in body language it was an irresistible invitation. A first-time venture for Armani, the designer wants to give artists the opportunity of reaching a wider public: an equally appealing concept to Begbie, who has always sought to make his work accessible. Fixing me with his one good eye (he lost the sight of the other in a childhood accident), the quietly-spoken Begbie explains:
'Mr Armani and I both work within the self-imposed discipline of a limited range, but we share a preoccupation with shape and form. He studies the way people express themselves and the way cloth falls - the body and gravity - these are very sculptural concerns. There's a certain austerity in Armani's work and very little colour and I think that's what he responded to initially in mine.'

Begbie has created an installation for the Emporio windows based on three different scales of the same figure, up to life-size. And, having occasionally introduced clothing into his work in the past, Begbie has now gone one step further and sculpted a steel-mesh jacket, monumentalising fashion: 'It has life and form, but there's no figure'. The project has also inspired him to produce his own range of clothes in steel cloth: 'It's a little stiff at first, but as it wears in, it softens up and takes on some character - like a pair of jeans.' Judging by Begbie's magical skill with his medium, Mr Armani had better look to his laurels.

NICHOLAS DRAKE
David Begbie at Emporio Armani: Wed 2 to Sun 13 Nov: 191 Brompton Road, SW3 (071-917 6888). In 1995 Begbie shows in New York, Monaco, Palm Beach, Sydney - and Holland Park, and collaborates on the set design for a new musical by Paul Sand, Mad and her Dad ('Dad' is based on Begbie), which opens at the Lyric Studio Hammersmith on 1 Feb 95.