A Layman’s Perspective.

New York City exemplifies the unnatural. We don’t have forests or mountain ranges, let alone grasslands and rivers. However, we do have something else: an unnatural mold of nature smelted and hardened into something else entirely by sheer force of will. We may not be able to run to a mountain, but we can rise to equivalent heights in skyscrapers. We may not have rivers, but streams of cars and people flow alongside rivers of concrete streets and sidewalks. In every natural landscape, we’ve found a way to transform it into an urban structure.

Ms. Rydingsvard’s works struck me as eerily similar to this theme of transformation. As an art form, sculptures take something natural (e.g. ideas, landscapes, objects), and recreate them as caricatures of their original selves. Looking at many of her works (such as Dottir II and Dumna), I feel a sense of delicacy that can only be achieved through careful observation. Large structures are balanced by single blocks a fraction of the sculptures’ sizes. Furthermore, the multitude of layers suggests an intricacy that is greater than a simple two-dimensional structure.

While I may not be well-versed in sculpture and artistic design, I can certainly appreciate the aesthetic appeal and effort Ms. Rydingsvard has put into her sculptures. The detailed carvings, layers, and balanced construction of her sculptures certainly gives her works a strong presence.