World’s first life-size portrait sculpture of Greta Thunberg for Winchester University.

In late Autumn 2019 I was contacted by Joy Carter, the Vice Chancellor of Winchester University, concerning a portrait figure of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. The sculpture was to be placed outside the large, state of the art West Downs Centre, one of the greenest buildings in the country and in the top 100 universities world-wide for sustainability and social responsibility. Following a presentation, I was chosen as the artist to produce the portrait statue.

I have depicted Greta standing on a block, with one foot over the edge to show her vulnerability and shyness. There are also other clues in her body language to show how she is feeling. Greta is a confident speaker and very bright; however, she has had to cope with quite a lot in her life, including her Asperger’s, therefore standing up in front of huge audiences was quite a big thing for her to achieve. I hope that this sculpture will be an inspiration to young people to ‘make a difference’ and to persevere in overcoming problems in their own lives and possibly help others who may have problems.