Project
Hårda tungor
Hard Tongues
Hårda tungor
In the exhibition Hårda Tungor (Hard Tongues), three contemporary artists explore the potential of the stone as a storyteller and a subject in its own right.
Yemisi Wilson works from a similar perspective, but while Michelangelo sought out carefully selected homogeneous blocks of marble, Wilson instead draws inspiration from stones with shifting colours, natural fractures, and worn surfaces. It is from the stone’s exterior that her process begins. She brings out already existing human and animal-like forms from the stone itself. A small cavity might become an eye, a rough edge a nose bridge, or a protruding part will be the beginning of a rhinoceros horn.
—Jesper Andersson, Curator
Yemisi finds her stones in quarries and ravines, where her trained eye seeks out human or animal characteristics. This phenomenon of perceiving figures in natural formations is known in psychology as pareidolia. A cognitive effect in which the brain interprets vague or random patterns as something recognisable. As social beings, humans are wired to seek contact with our surroundings. Whether we realise it or not, our brains are constantly assessing whether what we see is alive or not, friend or foe. Wilson’s sculptures play upon this innate empathetic searching, instilling a sense of kinship in her figures. They emanate calmness, relaxed, sometimes contemplative. As if they are looking for us just as much as we for them.
—Jesper Andersson, Curator