Sand Rays – earth drawing & drawing the earth
In her first ever online solo, Sophie Mastenbroek presents earlier work consisting of several spatial works in situ, plus three recent drawings made in the run-up to a new project.
The actions of the spatial works and of the drawings flow over in each other.
By combining the different works from different phases for this moment she investigates which overarching ways of working can be discovered in this combination.
"The drawings I make arise from texts I write and words I collect. Influenced by English nature writers, I look for the words and phrases that reveal the poetry of the earth. I like to pass on these collections in drawings that form an image of a scene or action that illustrate or sometimes alienate these experiences.
These three drawings come from a thought I had on the beach where the shapes left in the sand by people who moved in the sand appeared to me as a kind of molds in which its print can appear like a positive. I imagined how bodies can leave their drawings in the ground and how in this way the body and the earth can take on each other's shapes.
What fascinates me in working with clay is that it is a soft material that becomes petrified after you leave shapes in it with your fingers. Many of the materials I use are substances that go from soft to solid. In the ceramics works I look for a kind of entrance to which the body can relate to. In a way where you would want to stick your hand in it or pick the sculptures up to swing them."
Sophie Mastenbroek, 2021
With these actions influenced by the language that describes place and nature, Sophie Mastenbroek projects the beauty of this language onto her work. By meditating on small allusions, she uses the words as spells in which she takes the viewers into the mysterious feel Earth can have. Sophie Mastenbroek holds us in that feeling for a bit before it fades again.