gail van heerden

If I had not been dyslexic I could have been a poet, where the writtenword would count, but I am. The physical or emotional sensation of life have become an intuitive part of my work. In making sculpture, I do not think in words, I think in shapes. I find that all the natural forms are a source of unending interest - tree trunk, the growth of branches from the trunk, each finding its individual air space. How the orginal form of the branch or trunk, piece of wood may be reformed by other elements, weather, wind, water, man. the shpe of rocks, the bones of the Earth, weather with her moods, water which can calm yet frighten.

The whole of Nature is an endless demonstration of shape and form. My work is instinctive, intuitive, the feeling I can not write or say. The energy or power I may feel in seeing or the touch of the moment. I want to imprison this energy in my work so that others can feel it. My ambition is to empower my work with life. The bringing together of the known, what is recognised, factual, and the unknown intuitive, something without conscious reasoning, a feeling or emotion.

I have no inhibitions about using different forms and different experiences combined together in one work whether their source is anima, human, or from natural materials. A found object may have beauty in its own right, or portary a feeling or emotion. The challenge can be, not to disturb it, just enjoy its natural power.

With all the materials I use, I want them to speak to me. If it is wood I want to feel my way, and by trying to find out what it may suggest rather than imposing myself upon it. It may suggest a human figure, it may be animal form. Whatever I find that may portary the feelings I search for, there must be something preserved of the woods own life. I do not want to make a horse of wood, but wood which suggests a horse.

To evoke the essence of a form so successfully that people were to succumb to the natural temptation to run their hand over the sculpture, as if it seemed filled with inner life, or to feel the power of emotion which I felt when making the form.

Stone that has been carved into a form that exudes the physical or emotional sensation of a free spirit.

Discarded rusting metal with residue of a past life becomes alive once again in the form of the Aurochs, with all the strenght and power it portrays.

Form, the shape of things, are the most exciting side of my life. Through it I express my feelings and emotions without need for words.

And there I travel, looking, breathlessly.