Ursula von Rydingsvard

Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) presents a major open-air exhibition of six sculptures by Ursula von Rydingsvard in the Giardino della Marinaressa, Venice.

This is Von Rydingsvard’s first exhibition in Italy and extends the life and reach of the artist’s 2014 exhibition at YSP – her most extensive project to date – which included more than 40 works of drawing and sculpture in the Underground Gallery and open air. One of America’s most inventive and individual artists, with work in collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, von Rydingsvard has evolved a distinctive, highly personal sculptural language over the last four decades.

The exhibition at the Giardino della Marinaressa features monolithic structures meticulously assembled from 4″x4″ cedar beams which serve as von Rydingsvard’s blank canvas, a starting point from which she explores psychological and emotional themes. Her works do not grow from sketches or drawings; their development is instinctive and responsive throughout the making process, imbuing the works with a vital and tangibly visceral quality.

Although known for her work with cedar, Von Rydingsvard has explored other materials in recent years including bronze and resin, which she casts from cedar, thereby embedding into different media the textural idiosyncrasies of the wood and leaving an echo of the original material. In addition to three cedar sculptures, works in the Venice exhibition include two monolithic bronzes, Heart in Hand (2014) and Bronze Bowl with Lace (2014), and Elegantka II (2013), an icy blue-grey resin work that appears to alter with changing weather conditions and light, shifting from opaque to almost translucent when sunlight shines through it.