NYAB Event - Eva Hild Exhibition

Eva Hild Exhibition

Nancy Margolis Gallery

This event has ended.

Eva Hild, Sweden, creates ethereal, flowing ceramic sculptures, for which she is well known. Interested in the dualism between negative and positive space, explorations of air, light, and movement are central to her works. Hild received her MFA from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, namely the Visual Art Fund grant, Special Prize at the World Ceramic Biennale, Korea, and the Sten A. Olsson Fund for Science and Culture. Hild has made numerous works in public spaces, as large-scale metal sculptures. Her work can be found in public and private collections including the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Japan, the Museum of Contemporary Ceramics, Shanghai, the Mint Museum, North Carolina, the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, the National Museum, Stockholm, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Influence, pressure, strain. These words have been the foundation for my current projects that comprise communicating the theme in large, hand-built clay forms, delicate, continuously flowing entities in white thin built clay. They reflect varying degrees of external and internal pressures, and how as a consequence perception of inner and outer space is changed or challenged.
My sculptures are bodies, exposed to pressure and movements. On one hand, it is the mass in thin layers, running in a meander-like closed movement. On the other hand it is the empty space, air and light forming volumes, described by the contours of the mass. The construction is really made of the absent; the emptiness, the holes of air. The obvious body just defines the volume.
My fascination is about the relationship between the internal and external realities; the dualism between inside and outside, content and form, feeling and shape, impression and expression. The shape consists of continuously flowing inner and outer surfaces, with one line running through the form. Inside turns outside and the loop gives the sculpture its uniformity and identity. The empty space is drawn into the form and becomes one with it; the air fills the cavities.
It is a reflection of my inner landscapes of form. Everyday I experience the tension between presence and absence. The anxiety I feel is both constructive and destructive. My sculptures show me the necessity of opposites; they are paradoxes. Bodies where presence and absence meet. The clay is the prerequisite for creating space, and space is the prerequisite for the form of clay. Empty space as well as clay are my materials.
Dark Matter
Since last year I have expanded my work with a darker clay body. In the white sculptures, the air and light have just as much importance as the obvious body; they are equals. In comparison, the dark material absorbs light, and is by itself enough. The fragility is still there in the thin walls and delicate constructions, but the colour and appearance talks a language of strength and capability.
My work develops slightly in another direction when I change the qualities of the material; it gives other and new impulses. I focus even more on the tension between the closed and open parts; the repetition of structures; the contour of the piece; a play between the plain surface and complex protuberances and outgrowths.
Going from the light and ethereal to dark and heavy has been a necessity, but also a challenge. My themes and on-going exploration of emotional states and relations have developed further, and the addition of new components has deepend the content and expression.
My work often deals with basic opposing elements. In the lightness and darkness I continue to explore and expound the reality in-between.
I feel a great freedom in hand-building. It grows slowly, I have time to reflect, I can change direction, make connections and have a smooth surface with the same thickness. When the form is ready and the clay is dry, I sand away at the surface. The pieces are fired twice in stoneware temperature, around 1200°C and finally treated with silicate colour, linseed oil and pigments.”