Small Bronze Figure Sculptures
With my small figurative bronze sculptures, I use different styles varying from :
- realistic or naturalistic;
- Cubist or planar, emphasising volumes ( “Determined, “Angel”, “Squatting 2”)
- highly simplified (“Woman Arms Apart”)
- abstract-linear (“Stretched Forwards”,”Sitting”,”Squatting 3”, “Dancing”, “Waiting”, “Coming Together , Dancing Apart” );
- And very abstract (“You cant Catch me”)
- Very compact and solid due to stone carving process
This is due to a lifetime of sculpting and the different forms of expression I experimented with during three and half decades; but it is also due to the variety of feelings I want to convey.
With my naturalistic figures, I seek an earthy, affectionate expression, describing everyday body shapes in natural movements or postures. Many of my figures are ample, and don’t follow diets to appear fashionably slim; they are not idealised, “classical” figures. They are often sensuous.
Feelings and sensations I describe are for instance:
- “A state of being”, or restfulness – sedentary figures, expressing pure awareness and sensation, rather than action ( “Squatting 1 & 2 & 3”; “Sitting”, “Lying” “On Haunches” )
- Yearning (“Singing”, “Sitting”, “Waiting”), a tension between where one is, and where one would like to be
- Strength, standing one’s ground (“Woman Arms Apart”, “Against the Wind”, “Smallest Woman”)
- Resistance (“Holding Onto Yourself”, “Determined”)
- Movement, dynamism (“Dancing”, “Tumbling 1& 2& 3”, “Angel”)
With few exceptions, all of my figures are female. Being female myself, this preference derives from a position of empathy and identification, rather than a “male gaze” objectifying female bodies.
Some of the small figures serve as maquettes (= clay sketches) for larger figures more suitable for the garden ”Small Embrace”, “Couple Side by Side”, “Sitting”, “Squatting 2/2” ); many problems of a particular sculpture can be worked on a small scale. Once enlarged, some adaptations still have to be made to fit better the changed scale of the work.
