Agnetha Sjögren’s perfect dog is a bit of a mongrel: part Labrador, part Dalmatian, and with a soupçon of imaginary hound thrown in for good measure – think Scooby-Doo, Snoopy, and Tintin’s faithful companion, Snowy.
And it seems her unique mix of real and fictional canine traits doesn’t appeal just to her – her dog sculptures are in huge demand, with besotted owners including Jude Law and Angelina Jolie.
“I have almost forgotten that they’re dogs, though,” laughs the London-based Swedish artist. “To me, they’re 3D objects which I use as a canvas, just as other artists put paint onto a canvas.
“People ask me all the time if I’m going to do other animals, but I don’t need to – the dogs are just a way to allow me to tell my stories.”
Her joyful sculptures can be seen in gallieries worldwide – in recent months she’s signed up with galleries in Miami, Los Angeles and San Fransisco and, of course, with the Artmarket Gallery in Cottingham.
Each friendly figure – some alert with arrow-straight tails, others wagging crazy corkscrews – has its own individual personality.
They come sporting metallics, glittered flags, leather, découpaged first edition comic strips, vintage fabrics and lace – there’s even an hybrid beast, a scarlet-painted dog based on the famous Swedish Dala horse. You could say there’s an Agnetha Sjögren dog for every occasion and every home.
They’ve been featured in a huge variety of publications, from the fashionista’s favourite Vogue to high-end art publication Aesthetica.
And they’re easy to look after, too. “They started because I got tired of people telling me that their dog was nice!” says Agnetha. “I’m afraid of dogs and I wanted to show people what a ‘nice’ dog is.
“My dogs don’t eat bark, jump, bite, drool or need to go out for a poop. They sit or stand ‘nicely’ all day long, you can come and go as you please without having to worry about them... now that’s a ‘nice’ dog!”
Just like the real thing, though, each finished dog is very much an individual, with a personalised name tag (sterling silver, of course, and bearing both the name of the dog and the artist’s signature) on its collar, and a mini passport so that its new owner knows its back story.
But each starts the same way, with a handmade sculpture of wire and plaster from which a mould is taken. The dog is then cast in bronze, or, for the cartoon-covered canines, in Jesmonite, a lightweight but extremely strong and durable composite of mineral and acrylic resin which allows great flexibility of artistic vision, before being carefully sanded smooth, prior to decoration.
They’re all limited edition, with small edition numbers – usually a maximum of 50.
Currently, they’re all roughly life-sized, but Agnetha has started working on a range of ‘mini-mini’ dogs, each around 25cm high, and a bigger, outdoor, version, which will stand 1.5m to 2m high and is a response to people asking for a piece for their garden.
As well as the sculptures, Artmarket customers will be able to choose from a selection of limited edition screenprints.