STANDFIRST:

Life-sized wire sculptures and drawings of the human form are part of a striking new exhibition at a popular cafe, Mark Green met artist, Michelle Castles.

A ballerina stretches up, reaching for the stair landing.

A man gingerly balances across a roof beam, another leaps from high up a wall while a third tightropes on a metal spar.

Physical, but not solid, the wraith-like creatures are made from wire mesh sheeting.

It's enough to make you spill your tea and drop your cake off the end of your fork.

Full-sized and perfectly proportioned, the figures are created by Michelle Castles.

Much smaller versions, caught mid-jump, dance, throw or stride, are locked in picture frames on the wall just behind us.

Also part of the display are amazing detailed sketches of the body, a sheep and a chicken and charcoal drawings that somehow leap off the paper.

A nationally-acclaimed sculptor, Michelle has exhibited and is privately commissioned across the country. This is the first time she has shown her art in the gallery upstairs at Mrs F’s Fine Food Emporium in Keswick.

The exhibition is the sixth in a series staged by the Braithwaite-based art collective, Go Figure and the first to feature 3D art.

Petite and with a quietly spoken Northumbrian accent, Michelle spends weeks forming, twisting, bending and wiring the bodies into flowing or explosive positions.

She's in demand. She has a commission for a new sports hall at Sedbergh school. She is making five half-sized sculptures and then her sketches for the figures are converted into a vinyl 'digital wallpaper' to cover the walls.

“They want me to focus on upholding the Olympic ideas with loose titles of run jump throw catch and dance," she explains.

“Then I have a big private commission for a house in London of capoeira – a Brazilian martial art with a bit of dance and acrobatics."

Then there is an exhibition atHigh Clandon estate vineyard in Surrey in May and is part of an annual exhibition at RHS Wisley in August.

“Clandon is inspired by a musical theme, I'm making a conductor,” explains the artist.

"It is a bit different in that it is not a sporty figure, but it is dynamic and that is the core of what I'm about. It's just dynamism for me, it doesn't really matter what the figure is doing.

“I have been inspired from seeing the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra at The Sands Centre in Carlisle years ago. I was sitting behind the conductor and he wa sfantastic.

“He had so much energy and I just left there thinking 'oh I must at some point in my life make a sculpture of a conductor'.

“He just had a massive amount of energy. This energy seemd to pour right out of him and he was rooted to the earth. His feet didn't move and yet everything else did, he was like a tree swaying in the wind and I just wanted to show this immense energy coming out of him.”

The 43-year-old mother of three was born and brought up in Northumberland and after living in East Anglia, she and husband Tyrone – a former headteacher - decided on a total life shift and took over the Royal Hotel at Dockray.

Her studio is in a converted stable block behind the hotel.

She was told she had no skill when she applied at art college.

The wire figures came out of desperation. Michelle didn’t know what to do for her final show and at the end of a talk with her tutor, he tossed her a piece of wire mesh from the floor and told her to make something from it.

“I just started twisting it and playing with it and liked it.”

Her graduation show was called Descent – a series of 30 wire figures cascading down a staircase atrium based around Dante’s Inferno.

She graduated with a BA in Art and Design from the University of Sunderland in 1998 and was spotted by a scout for London galleries.

The young artist was one of only two sculptors at the New Contemporaries Show in London which followed.

Descent was bought by the university and went on permanent display and Michelle found an agent and a gallery in Chelsea.

The figures can take upto 50 hours and Michelle works late into the night on her creations.

She thought of becoming a nun while at university and admits there is somethig devotional about her art.

Insects and hybrid, part-human insects have been conjured up, her next idea is to clothe her figures for the first time.The Go Figure group will be staging an exhibition at the Theatre by the Lake in November on the theme of identity.

“Quite often now in our life drawing, we are starting to dress our models up and put clothes on them” she laughs.

“But clothes that you wouldn't expect them to be wearing, not just cross-dressing but unusual combinations such as a tutu with a bowler hat, with shooting jacket with wellies – bizarre things regardless of gender.”

The question of gender identity has spilled over into Michelle's art.

Though her figures are not overtly sexual, she has been asked by Sedbergh school to make their figures 'gender neutral'.

“I've noticed naturally with my own work that it has become less and less specific as the years have gone on. I'm aware that people don't want to see that big difference between male and female.

“But it is very difficult to do and I realise that gender neutral is just a state of mind and probably what they really meant was androgynous.

“It is very hard, it is not just a case of taking the bits and bobs off, the body is actually different and the poses are different as well.

“We are exploring those themes at the theatre and whether identity is your outward appearance, your clothing or the way you present yourself, or is it how you are inside and how can we express that.

“I'm going to dress the figures up for the first time. I can't dress them afterwards because the arms and legs don't move, I have to make the figure as I'm going along. I might have to do a bit of sewing as I go along."

Michelle's current show at Mrs F's runs for the next six weeks.

All the works are for sale, ranging in price from £50 to £3,000 for one of the dramatic large mesh figures.

The Gallery Upstairs is sponsored by Miller Clear Architects. For more information visit www.mrsfskeswick.co.uk

To find out more about Michelle’s work or how to commission her, visit www.michellecastles.co.uk or email info@michellecastles.co.uk