Sculptor Lotty Alexander transforms animal skulls into striking works of art. Ruth Campbell meets the artist in her Harrogate studio apartment

THERE is something beautifully incongruous about Lotty Alexander’s spectacular crystal encrusted animal skulls. On one level, they project images of death and decay. For these skulls of culled Red deer, South African Oryx and Texan steer bulls are shells of the animals they once were. Yet, in Lotty’s hands, their elegant sculptural lines, painstakingly hand-set with thousands of Swarovski crystals, sparkle with life. “It’s as if I am giving them a second life, creating a veil and preserving them in time,” she says.

A diamond setter by trade, Lotty used to work in the high-end luxury watch and jewellery market as brand director for makes including Cartier and one of the oldest Swiss watch houses, Breguet, which crafted the famous pocket watch worn by Sir Winston Churchill.

Bold and creative, while working for Swatch on its innovative new POP range in 1993, Lotty liaised with one of her heroines, Vivienne Westwood, on the production of the cutting-edge fashion designer’s iconic Orb timepiece for the brand. Like Westwood, with whom she remains in touch, Lotty is an enigmatic individual, a stylish bohemian, but one who retains a respect for classic quality and tradition.

Working in some of the world’s most exclusive stores, everywhere from London’s Bond Street to Paris’s Place Vendome and Fifth Avenue in New York, during her career in the world of high-end jewellery, Lotty was surrounded by luxurious gems and precious, one-off designer creations. But it wasn’t until she saw artist Damien Hirst’s exhibition ten years ago featuring his diamond-encrusted human skull, entitled For the Love of God, that she was inspired to create her first sparkling deer skull.

Hirst’s exhibition, which focused on life and death, sparked memories of her childhood upbringing in New Orleans, where Lotty’s father, originally from Harrogate, worked for NASA as a design engineer on the first space shuttle, Challenger. While she spent her summers in the North Yorkshire countryside, Lotty was fascinated by the cult of Voodooism, brought to French Louisiana during the colonial period by workers and slaves from West Africa, in New Orleans, where she was educated from the age of eight. Skulls and skull masks were commonly paraded there in festivals and celebrations. “They are used to celebrate the passing from life to death, a celebration of life. My skulls mirror this proclamation,” says Lotty.

It was while studying contemporary art part time at Winchester School of Art that Lotty created her first striking animal skull sculptures, hand-set with Swarovski crystals in a myriad of colours, for her final degree show.

Her first client was close friend Rob Tincknel, the property developer behind the £8bn regeneration of the iconic Battersea Power Station. “Rob’s wife Rachel loved my work and, knowing what was involved, he offered me £3,000. That was the very first deer skull I sold,” says Lotty. Once the skull was hung in their stunning home near Bath, where the couple entertain clients, word spread. Soon everyone from racehorse owners to internationally renowned interior designers and Texan oil barons were buying Lotty’s work.

It has been displayed in luxury hotels and for film and set design. And one major American fashion house has even commissioned her to make a series of stunning handbag clasps from Russian sea eagle skulls, encrusted with black crystals.

Lotty, who sources her skulls them from as far as Russia, America and South Africa, as well as from National Trust deer parks in the UK, stresses that culling is vital in order to preserve a healthy equilibrium. “It’s a form of luxury up-cycling,” she explains. Many of the skulls are flown into Heathrow. “When I get them they are just cadaver heads packed in ice. After they’ve been cleaned, I treat them with formaldehyde to prepare them for setting.”

Their transformation into the glittering, sculptural objects that end up on the walls of glamorous homes all over the world takes place in Lotty’s studio apartment in the centre of Harrogate. She moved here from London two years ago to be close to her parents, when her mother was ill, leaving her job as brand director with Breguet to concentrate on her art, while still working as a luxury goods consultant and freelance journalist and interior designer.

The early 19th Century two-bedroom apartment, with its high ceilings and huge windows, looking out towards the town’s open parkland, known as The Stray, was the first property she saw online. “It used to be part of a famous haberdashery store before being converted into a four-storey town house. But the back of the building looks like something out of New York, with metal fire escapes, which I love. I like the buzz of being in town.”

Due to the size of her pieces she sits on the floor by a window to work, taking advantage of the natural light. Each skull is different, so Lotty carefully studies its form before polishing its horns to bring out the natural colours. The delicate process of attaching the tiny glass crystals, each one carefully applied by hand in a technique called pave setting, takes several weeks. “The pave setting, developed by Cartier, is what gives them their sparkle,” she explains. “We all love something that glitters. It is pure decadence.”

The top of each rose crystal must be level to the next as any slight change in pressure can ruin the perfectly smooth finish. “If just one is out of sync, it isn’t right,” explains Lotty, who says she finds the whole process relaxing.

She uses thousands to cover a large animal skull and as many as 700 on a smaller bird skull. At around £1 each, they don’t come cheap. Her mallard duck and sea egrets, displayed under vintage hand-blown glass cloches, starting at £350, are particularly popular. “I am receiving orders for two or three a month,” says Lotty, whose interior design work in homes and hotels in Switzerland and New York also features her trademark Swarovski crystals.

One home owner flew her out to Miami recently to embellish a freestanding bath with 75,000 crystals. “That took me three weeks,” says Lotty, who also makes casts of human skulls, originating from London museum archives, and is developing laser cut skulls from paper.

Having jetted around the world in her previous career, she is now happily settled in Harrogate. “I had a wonderful corporate life, with a large, six-figure salary. It was quite daunting to give it all up, but Mum and Dad had to come first.” Her work, however, is about to travel further. Lotty is in talks with Barneys of New York, as well as three galleries and the iconic Delano Hotel in Miami, who are all keen to exhibit. “I am really looking forward to having my art shown in the States,” she says.

Lotty’s skulls can be seen at: The Mercer Gallery, Harrogate until June 12, and Panter & Hall Gallery, London from June 28 until July 1. For further information visit: Newlight-art.org.uk

website: lottyalexandercrystaldeerskulls.com

Pictures: RICHARD DOUGHTY