HUMAN

What does it mean to be human? How can the human be portrayed? 
What is a portrait? What can it convey in its stillness and silence? What is the truth and purpose of a portrait as it captures a being at a specific time of their existence?

For the exhibition I finished a portrait head of my son that I had started more than two years ago. I had kept the clay wet, trying to adapt the work to a boy that wouldn’t stop growing and changing. I created a second head of the same young man in the period of three weeks.

The portrait heads remain unfired as if still in the studio. If a clay piece is not fired, it will disintegrate into dust over time. If the clay is moistened again the material recovers its malleable qualities and can be worked and transformed once more. We come from Earth and return to Earth. Nothing is permanent, everything is in constant transformation.

My installation “Essence” for the exhibition is completed by a bronze sculpture called “Venus Maternity” and a photograph of my father holding my son at young age in a protective embrace. When I rediscovered this photograph I understood the Essence of Humanness : This portrait in time will never be repeated. The instant is unique. My son is now so big he can never be cradled in the same way again. My father is not present in this physical world any longer, however, the very gesture is repeated every second in every community in every part of the world : 
Birth, Love, Protection, Transmission, Transformation, Death, Transcendence is what makes us human.

‘HUMAN’ - an exhibition of sculpture, paintings and photography by nine London-based female artists: 

Frances Blane, Christine Bory, Uta Brouet, Margarita Hernandez, Margarita Mavromichalis, Jane McAdam Freud, Dawn Rowland, Gigi Salomon, Valerie Wiffen.

at the German Ambassador’s Residence
 22 Belgrave Square, London SW1X

7th October 2017 -­ 24th January 2018