A SCULPTRESS is enjoying success with her exhibition of life size clay torsos and backsides.

Carolyn Corfield, a member of Darlington's Women's Business Network, first became interested in making casts of the human form after a romantic commission.

She was asked to take a cast of a woman's torso as a gift for her subject's husband.

Since then, Carolyn has used clay chests to make torso tables, while her casts have also been used as hangings, with glazes of aqua blue, terracotta, natural beige and embossed in gold leaf.

However, her latest exhibition at the Montage Gallery, in Castleton, near Guisborough, east Cleveland, features full-size sculptures of the human form.

The bevy of bodies, includes a female leaning torso in stoneware, which sensually sways backwards and reflects the texture and colour of sandstone.

"I'm not out to shock and I'm not making any sort of political point with these," she said.

"I made them as a kind of study of the human form preserved and kept hidden over centuries - until now."

Over 20 varieties of male and female bodies of all shapes and sizes are on display at the gallery until October 6.