The Piece Hall in Halifax: Artist Sophie Ryder on her hare sculptures at the Calderdale landmark

Known for her large-scale sculptures inspired by animals, humans and mystical creatures, Ryder was first approached by the Piece Hall Trust more than two years ago about the possibility of an exhibition in the courtyard space of the magnificent Grade I listed Georgian building.

Like many creative projects, it was delayed by the Covid pandemic but the five artworks – Dancing Hares, The Minotaur and the Hare on a Bench, Torsos, Crawling, and Girl with Knees Up – are now in place and look like they belong there. There are few places that can contain works of such size – one of the pieces, Dancing Hares, 4.5m high and more than 7m wide – but the elegant, expansive 18th Century arcade carries it off with aplomb.

“The building itself is so lovely at the Piece Hall – it is like walking into an Italian square,” says Ryder, who is based in the Cotswolds.

“I fell in love with the site as soon as I saw it, but also I thought how are we going to fill this space? But when the work arrived, it was a pleasant surprise – the sculptures do really hold their own in the space and the background of the stone is a lovely contrast with the colour of the bronzes. A lot of people think my work should be displayed in a field somewhere but I actually love seeing my work in an urban setting and it is much more challenging to place sculptures in front of a beautiful building.”

Ryder is not one to shy away from a challenge – working on the scale that she does is not easy; logistically and from an engineering point of view there are many things to take into consideration.

“I love it, but there is an awful lot to think about, especially when you are placing large-scale work outside,” she says. “You have to ask yourself if it is going to fall over, what happens when it is windy, whether it can easily be pushed over, will children climb on it, or if the weather is going to ruin it. So, you have to be an artist and an engineer. One of the main reasons I like working on a big scale is that I want people to interact with it.”

The audience will certainly be able to do that at the Piece Hall – there is plenty of space to walk around, and even through, the pieces.

For Ryder it is also a welcome return to Yorkshire – she has a long-standing relationship with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park where she has had solo exhibitions in the past and some of her work is on permanent display there. The link to the YSP is significant and goes back a long way.

“I left art school and went straight into a three-month residency at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park – it was an amazing start to my career,” she says. “It is such a remarkable place and (founding director) Peter Murray has done an incredible job with it; today it is known and respected all over the world. It has such a lovely atmosphere – it makes art accessible to everyone.”

There is a Yorkshire connection with one of Ryder’s main artistic inspirations too – Castleford-born Henry Moore.

“From when I was tiny, he and Picasso were the artists I really loved and quite honestly they are still my favourites,” she says.

“I felt inspired by the stillness, solidity and presence of Moore’s work. With Picasso I loved the minotaur and the whimsical nature of his work and I also loved the diversity of his work – he did everything. It helped me understand that an artist doesn’t have to do just one thing. I do all sorts of things including tapestry, drawings, printmaking and mosaics. I don’t call myself a sculptor, I’m an artist. I will try any material and I will keep going with it until I have exhausted it.”

The large-scale works on display outside at the Piece Hall are either made in wire or bronze and there are additional smaller works – bronze sculptures and some pencil and charcoal on paper drawings – in the gallery; a mosaic is also on show at Dean Clough.

Ryder has been quietly going about her work for more than 40 years now and is considered to be one of the top British contemporary artists working today. She was the youngest student after JMW Turner to be admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts and she is probably best known for developing the figure of the Lady-Hare, a human woman with the head of a hare, as a counterpart to the Minotaur of Greek mythology. Lady-Hare continues to feature in her work including in a large-scale piece she is currently working on that will be big enough to contain a staircase for people to explore the inside.

“Some of my work is massive and it takes years to make,” says Ryder. “I have to work everything out on a smaller scale, so I do something in wire and plaster, then I scale it up four times and then scale it up four times again and then it ends up being 22ft tall. Mistakes really show up when something is so large, so you have to be really careful to scale it up gradually.”

Although a team of 30 to 40 people will work on a piece once it gets to the foundry to be cast in bronze, all the preparatory work is done by Ryder alone. At a petite 5ft 3in, some have found that difficult to believe – it has been a bit of an irritation.

“I’m actually much stronger than I look,” she says. “I think there are still some people who at the back of their minds think that it’s not a woman’s job to be a sculptor. Because I was very young when I started exhibiting I had horrendous comments from some male artists. I was never encouraged. It is changing now but it was really difficult.”

Ryder says that she feels “absolutely driven” to do what she does, and that is reflected in her daily routine. She is up every day at 5.30am when she goes for a mile and a half swim, then has breakfast and is in her studio by 9am. She has four dogs who she walks several times a day, she takes an hour’s lunch break and works in the studio until 5pm, but her working day doesn’t end there.

“After dinner I work on my smaller pieces until bedtime. I don’t stop – I can’t sit and watch television, I have to be doing something. I used to do tapestries, which is nice and calm, but now I make little maquettes out of a special clay that’s a bit like plasticine, it never sets.”

Coming up with ideas isn’t ever an issue for her, she says. “I never get blocked, in fact I have the opposite problem – I can’t work quickly enough. I wish there were ten of me. I really love doing what I do and my ambition is to just keep on going. The feedback to this exhibition has been phenomenal so far, it’s been amazing and when what I do is something people enjoy, that feels so worthwhile.”

Sophie Ryder at the Piece Hall runs until May 23. www.thepiecehall.co.uk