All my work is based on the human figure, almost always using the live model. Critic Anne Albert recently wrote, "Clyatt’s work appropriates classical figure sculpting methods and forms, yet through the use of postmodern and contemporary tropes it subverts the all-too-familiar prejudices against the figure generally and the nude in particular." All of us working with the nude have stories: Public art commissions declined, gallerists turning work back for feared offenses against public taste, people seeking the erotic where none was intended, academic indifference.

I am heartened to see a resurgent interest in the figure in recent years. For figure sculptors in particular, however, the ability to say something powerful and new brings special challenges, for instance moving beyond the gravitational influence of Moore, Rodin and Giacometti, and addressing the fact that classical sculpture has been repeatedly appropriated by repressive regimes. Add to that the fact that anatomically-grounded figure training was all but driven out of the academy for 50 years, save for a few holdout institutions, and the result is two generations of largely forgettable figure sculpture and an indifferent collector base. With such diminished opportunities, today’s young figure sculptors have been far more likely to build careers around creating digital work for video games and movies than pursuing the path of galleries and commissions, though positive change is in the wind.