Spaniard is a woman's head carved from smoky quartz in the style of animated light plasticity. The features are cut in high relief on one face of the crystal; the other faces are polished into windows, so that turning the sculpture changes the image seen inside it. In the honey-coloured quartz the image within the hollow flows like a candle flame, molten bronze with a tint of old gold. It recalls the female figures of ancient myth and legend, and the movement of light and shadow between life and death.
Light plasticity is a recent development in the art of stone cutting: in sculpture made of transparent crystal, the changing flow of light creates effects the carver works with. They are animation, where light passing through the turning crystal makes the image appear to move; silhouette, where matte crystal reduces the image to its contour; light and shadow, where white and black crystals are combined in one composition for graphic contrast; light and colour, where transparent coloured elements mix into a painterly effect; and cryptography, where implicit images and symbols are set into an abstract form for the viewer to find.
Materials: smoky quartz
Spaniard is a woman's head carved from smoky quartz in the style of animated light plasticity. The features are cut in high relief on one face of the crystal; the other faces are polished into windows, so that turning the sculpture changes the image seen inside it. In the honey-coloured quartz the image within the hollow flows like a candle flame, molten bronze with a tint of old gold. It recalls the female figures of ancient myth and legend, and the movement of light and shadow between life and death.
Light plasticity is a recent development in the art of stone cutting: in sculpture made of transparent crystal, the changing flow of light creates effects the carver works with. They are animation, where light passing through the turning crystal makes the image appear to move; silhouette, where matte crystal reduces the image to its contour; light and shadow, where white and black crystals are combined in one composition for graphic contrast; light and colour, where transparent coloured elements mix into a painterly effect; and cryptography, where implicit images and symbols are set into an abstract form for the viewer to find.
Materials: smoky quartz
