Working the Stone in its Birthplace
Cervaiole
Working for one month in the active quarry of Cervaiole, Seravezza, Italy. Yemisi & Inger Sannes do a Symposium as a Pilot experience. Yemisi starts her standing pregnant woman here in 2010 and finishes it at Studio Sem in Pietrasanta.
Querciola Quarry | Carrara, Italy
7 artists in Cava Cervaiole 2011
Simposium
in 2011, a second simposium takes place in the Cervaiole Quarry, located in the town of Colonnata, Italy, above Carrara. Seven Scandinavian artists work on-site, in the active quarry. Yemisi carves her big resting Rhinocerous in the quarry and finishes it at the Petacchi Studio.
500 millions of years ago the stone was born, created through time…I walk in the quarries and find stones I think are special. I ponder them in my studio, I see who they are. I bring them out with my chisels.
There’s a thread connecting how Yemisi approaches each new assignment: she often dwells in the sphere of memory. She moves between an unconscious collective memory, the history of the place, and her own connotations of events, occurrences, and places.
When I see Yemisi’s animal heads, I want to greet them in the same way I would greet a real animal, and if it were possible, I would like to greet them as an animal would greet another animal. The sculptures bring me down to this extraordinarily intimate level.
Yemisi Wilson has a unique position in the Stockholm art scene as a classically trained artist working in Sweden, who is also operating in the contemporary art scene.