Why do I sculpt? I simply love it. I just have to “recreate” life as I see it. I caught sculpture at a turning point in my life. It was infectious, demanding, selfish, totally compulsive, it has become my reason d’être. Sculpture is in our time and place. It exists; it is more than an image. You should engage with it, touch it and see it from all angles. It has the advantage of presence.

I was always good at drawing and as a child I got a lot of pleasure from making things from plasticine. After A level Art I was not encouraged to pursue it as a career but followed my father and brother into the army. This was followed by some time in business.

More than half my work takes the human form as its subject. I started sculpture in the traditional way, with life classes. Most of my grandfather’s work was based on the human form and his classical training must have had an influence on me from a very early age. I am mainly self-taught and I have grown to love the human body as a subject. The hands, feet and especially the face, are the most exciting to sculpt. For me, feet depict tension and sensuality; hands reveal age and beauty but a face can conceal and reveal life, spirit and personality.

Why spaniels? I love spaniels, they are quick witted, keen to please and are particularly active. I grew up with them. Springers tend to be more reliable and the cocker full of surprises. Aesthetically they are perhaps the most endearing of dogs. I enjoy sculpting other animals too but I will always come back to spaniels.

Much of my work is commissioned in bronze, a wonderfully versatile medium. Carved marble set the renaissance alight but bronze compliments it. Marble has translucence and radiance but bronze renders a greater spectrum of colour (Patina) and crispness for detail in any size or form.

…art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand… I cannot agree with the artists who claim superciliously that the layman can understand nothing of Art, and that he can best show his appreciation of their works by silence and a cheque-book. 1.

As a contemporary English sculptor I aspire to carry on where Frampton, Ford, Gilbert and Colton left off. Moore and Hepworth are of the twentieth century, I am of the twenty-first.

Robert is now an Associate Member of the AFAS. He works in the countryside, using an old tack room as a studio, surrounded by horses, dogs, cats and an abundance of wildlife.

Historical Note.

Robert’s grandfather was Harry R. Mileham F.R.S.A., winner of the Gold Medal and travelling Studentship at the Royal Academy of Schools London 1895 under Fredric, Lord Leighton. Gilbert Holiday RA, a well known equestrian artist, was a cousin.

Exhibition Information

1998 Dorchester

1999 Dorchester, Badminton, Burleigh,

2000 Dorchester,

2001 Pangborne

2002 London

2003 London, Athelhampton, Bournemouth University,

2004 Moigne Court DAW, Art In The Garden, art@plush, Art at Home, Dorchesater,

2005 Poole Quay, Lilliput, Blandford, William Herschel Museum Bath, SWCAF Exeter

2006 Poole Quay