Spaniard
By Alexander Levental · Natural Smoky Quartz
Within smoky quartz, a woman’s face emerges in shades of honey, bronze and old gold. Light gathers along her features, then slips into shadow, leaving the impression of a presence held deep inside the crystal.
Turn the sculpture slowly, and it feels as though her whole life is passing before you. The same face seems youthful in one reflection, weary in another; a softened contour suggests tenderness, a deepening shadow something endured. These are glimpses we recognise without knowing her story—the way joy, loss and time can inhabit a single face.
Her features remain carved in stone, yet light continually changes how we see them. Each turn brings something into view and takes something else away. You cannot hold every reflection at once, just as you cannot see a whole life in a single moment.
Alexander Levental carves her features in high relief on one face of the crystal, while the polished surfaces become windows into its interior. Through animated light plasticity, his sculpture unfolds in the changing relationship between quartz, light and the viewer.
She turns through light and shadow, and for a moment, you find something of your own life in hers.
Spaniard forms part of the JP GEMS & CARVINGS collection. Alexander Levental’s work is also represented in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, where his Ural jasper sculpture Yeshua featured in the 2022 exhibition Contemporary Gemstone Carving.
Spaniard
By Alexander Levental · Natural Smoky Quartz
Within smoky quartz, a woman’s face emerges in shades of honey, bronze and old gold. Light gathers along her features, then slips into shadow, leaving the impression of a presence held deep inside the crystal.
Turn the sculpture slowly, and it feels as though her whole life is passing before you. The same face seems youthful in one reflection, weary in another; a softened contour suggests tenderness, a deepening shadow something endured. These are glimpses we recognise without knowing her story—the way joy, loss and time can inhabit a single face.
Her features remain carved in stone, yet light continually changes how we see them. Each turn brings something into view and takes something else away. You cannot hold every reflection at once, just as you cannot see a whole life in a single moment.
Alexander Levental carves her features in high relief on one face of the crystal, while the polished surfaces become windows into its interior. Through animated light plasticity, his sculpture unfolds in the changing relationship between quartz, light and the viewer.
She turns through light and shadow, and for a moment, you find something of your own life in hers.
Spaniard forms part of the JP GEMS & CARVINGS collection. Alexander Levental’s work is also represented in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, where his Ural jasper sculpture Yeshua featured in the 2022 exhibition Contemporary Gemstone Carving.
