NCCCIAP

Coral Penelope Lambert is internationally recognized for producing process based site-specific work and sculpture in the public realm that combine her background as a formal steel sculptor with her passion for iron casting. Lambert is Professor of Sculpture at Alfred University and Director of the Cohen National Casting Center Foundry where she is currently heading up the design of the new metal casting facility. She recently received the SUNY Chancellors Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities and the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Educator Award. 

Her iron pour performances are often held at postindustrial sites and simultaneously celebrate the wonderment and majesty of nature whilst examining environmental issues. Substantiating the transient and extraordinary resilience of nature, Lambert’s research places relevance on the origin of materials and challenges how they change and exist over time as in ‘Gushers’ at Carrie Furnaces, Pittsburgh which incorporates industrial waste like coke dust and slag. In her object-based sculptures, whether utilizing ancient or new digital technologies she is interested in speeding up processes that parallel those found in nature. Such as heating, cooling, compression and oxidization, she intentionally cultivates traces of the making process to remain as an integral part of the work, portentously echoing the scars generated by our civilization upon the Earth.  

Born in England in 1966. She achieved a B.F.A at Canterbury School of Art in 1989 and a M.F.A at Manchester Metropolitan University in 1990. After teaching in England for a few years, she went on to undertake an International Research Fellowship at the University of Minnesota from 1994-97. Internationally she has exhibited in 10 one person and 143 group shows, 78 of which were Invitational. She is an original ‘Iron Maiden’ and Founding Director of USUK Iron Symposium 1997-2012. She Co-Founded New Orleans Sculpture Lab 2000- 2005 and Co-Chaired the 5th International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art in 2006 taking it overseas for the first time to the World Heritage Site of Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale, UK. She is the recipient of 22 awards including Gottlieb Foundation Award, Jerome Fellowship, Joan Mitchell Grant. She has participated in many international residencies, symposiums and conferences. Her work can be seen on exhibition in galleries, museums and sculpture parks, most recently she produced new work ‘Eclipse’ on show at Sculpture Fields, Chattanooga for the inaugural John Henry Invitational Award.