Words Dale Berning Sawa
Film and photography Luke & Nik

The couple met at the Chelsea School of Art in the early 1980s. Thanks to their chosen medium's significant spatial demands, they spent years effectively space-hopping their way around the capital. "Every time we got redeveloped, we'd have to hire a huge lorry and move to another space," says Laura. On a recent trip to a street in Hackney where they lived for some time, Laura realised that one of her bronzes was still in the back garden: "We'd just left it there when we moved because I had nowhere to put it." Andrew estimates he's lost half of his life's work in this way.

Quite how unfeasible this was became apparent in 2012, when they were living in Kentish Town but storing work in a hangar near Heathrow. So, they finally headed beyond the M25 and bought a storage unit in West Sussex. When some land became available around the agroindustrial building, they bought that too. And, bit by bit, they began to knit themselves – and their work – into the countryside.

"Laura and I met at Chelsea College where we did a postgraduate sculpture course," Andrew recalls. "In those days, it was one of the very few buildings that had been built as an art school, as opposed to being converted from something else. The sculpture studios had these beautiful high slot windows and tough walls below them." Working with local architect Roger Lilley, the couple have taken inspiration from that Chelsea studio, designing a space that includes access for lorries (they arrived with no less than eight loads), level concrete floors (for driving a forklift truck around on), good light, strong walls, big sinks and eco-heating.

Getting permission for the build took four years – a drawn-out battle with the council that has resulted in "a bigger and better building" than what they’d initially envisaged, says Andrew. "Since we moved in, I don't think we've had any regrets about any of the decisions. We think it's great."

The couple live on the first floor, in light-filled spaces with the same concrete floors and industrial feel throughout. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and mid-century furniture connect to the art being made downstairs. And while their studio spaces and practices are distinctly different, their working lives are beautifully intertwined. They share assistants and equipment, and over breakfast or lunch, they'll routinely help each other out. "Laura is a figurative sculptor, and I'm not," says Andrew. "But that doesn't matter, because the sort of principles and the way these forms behave, whether they're figurative or not, have the same issues about the ground, the dynamics, the materials."

Behind the Black Barn is the Brown Barn, a capacious storage area that also houses Andrew's 1992 installation, ‘The Sea of Sun’ – an enfilade of spaces sectioned off by hanging anodised chain curtains printed with black and white portraits and abstract colour field patterns.

From these buildings, the work then spreads out into the land. Creating a sculpture garden wasn't on the cards when they first moved from London; indoor space was their most pressing concern. But being able to not just store but install works and live with them has changed everything. "A good aspect of having this space is that you can let unfinished work just hang around until you know what to do with it," says Laura. "You can let things tell you what they need because you have the time."

Moving here from London has made her work dreamier. "It's given me more space to dream and be playful. As you're wandering around, you're constantly noticing beautiful skies, beautiful flowers, beautiful animals." For the forthcoming ‘Art For Your Oceans’ sale at Sotheby’s, Laura is working on a piece that features a slightly larger-than-life-sized seal reclining on a chaise longue. An accompanying watercolour made with seaweed-based ink features a small person being held by a seal in the ocean.

Opening up not just their practices but the idea of sculpture itself is central to Matt Black Barn, the educational outreach programme they founded in 2020, funded in part by Arts Council England. It enables school pupils and older visitors to take part in outdoor drawing workshops featuring live alpacas, or plasticine portraiture and bug-building sculpture sessions. Regular open days allow others to explore the grounds. There’s also a gallery space where other artists are invited to show their work.

Laura and Andrew's aim is to give people the opportunity to explore sculpture and, by extension, other ways of living. “It's not all altruistic,” says Andrew. "It's quite energising for us as well. We get to converse with people who are seeing the work for the first time in the context in which it’s being made."

Art For Your Oceans is a selling exhibition of specially commissioned works by 17 leading international artists, devised to raise funds and awareness for pioneering ocean conservation initiatives by WWF in the UK and further afield. The free exhibition is on view in Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries from 7-15th May 2025