I consider myself a New Yorker now, but I was born and raised in London. Before settling for art I considered standing for parliament, which would have placed me squarely in the family tradition: my father was Duncan Sandys, a Cabinet minister, and my grandfather was Winston Churchill. Incidentally, they were both talented artists.

My art combines the lighthearted and the profound, the sacred and the secular. I work in mixed media: my art includes sculpture, paintings, collage and works on paper. Monumental sculpture has been a permanent feature of my work — early in my career I created three pieces for the United Nations' Year of the Child in 1979, now installed in the UN centres in New York, Geneva and Vienna. More recently I created Woman Free, again for the UN, and Breakthrough. The latter comprised dismantled sections of the Berlin Wall and is now permanently sited at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where Churchill gave his historic "Iron Curtain" speech. It was dedicated in 1990 by former President Ronald Reagan.

All pictures are taken from "Edwina Sandys: Art", published last month by Glitterati and available online via amazon.co.uk

www.edwinasandys.com