exhibit at atelier hermes

Artist Makes Glass Sculptures of Human Body

Untitled porcelain sculpture by Laurence Dervaux are part of her solo exhibition at Atelier Hermes. / Courtesy of Atelier Hermes
By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter

The human body is considered God's masterpiece. Belgian artist Laurence Dervaux steps in the shoes of God as she recreates and reinterprets the human body in her fascinating glass sculptures and porcelain work.

Dervaux is currently holding her first solo exhibition at Atelier Hermes, located near Dosan Park, southern Seoul.

The exhibit showcases how Dervaux recreates the human body's internal organs, bones and fluids with transparent glass and fragile porcelain sculptures. Beautiful and delicate, these glass ``body sculptures'' also exude mystery.

``The artist visualizes the `vital force' with the `materiality' of liquid and solids to ask a question on the essence of life and death between organic and geometric forms, freedom and order, transparency and opacity … Dervaux keeps the quest of eternity and temporality, balance and instability, pause and flow, birth and disappearance,'' the gallery catalogue said.

As you enter the gallery, the first work that visitors will see is a series of glass sculptures ``Human Fluids'' on 15 pedestals. Each one is meant to represent various body parts, including the heart, intestines, abdomen and cells, filled with colored liquids corresponding to body fluids such as breast milk, water, blood and urine.

```Human Fluids' is a transformation of the body organs, symbolizing the birth and life of the human being, into beautiful and precious gems. It is much more interesting, besides, in that the glass sculpture is created by blowing the melted glass at the end of an iron pipe,'' the gallery said.

An untitled series of white porcelain sculptures on pedestals are lined up against the wall, forming an ``L.'' Upon closer scrutiny, one can see the bundled porcelain strips resemble human ribs.

But the most visually appealing installation is ``The Amount of Blood Pumped by the Human Heart in 37 Minutes.'' It is composed of four tall glass towers filled with red liquid, and arranged vertically to resemble a human form with a head and body.

``As glass vases and thin glass plates are piled up by turns, the towers entirely depend on the balance among adjacent glass components. The subtle assemblage of glass towers, reminding of a totem pole, looks fascinating and mysterious but easily collapsible even at a light touch, like a house of cards. As the title suggests, the four red liquid glass towers corresponds with the real blood that can be drawn out of the human heart in 37 minutes,'' the gallery said.

There is also a video installation ``Human Liquid'' located in a small room at the gallery. It is almost hypnotic watching how a drop of red pigment diffuses in water, creating swirls of red and pink until it slowly disappears.

``As the smallest red drop runs into a vast space with a sense of steady but intensive speed, the video installation expresses the birth of life and its inevitability as well as greatness,'' the gallery said.

Born in Tournai, Belgium, Dervaux is a graduate of the Academy of Fine and Decorative Arts. Her works have already shown in other Hermes galleries, including La Verriere in Brussels and The Third Floor in Singapore.

She has always been known for artwork that symbolizes birth, life and death. ``The coexistence of `light and shadow, birth and death, attraction and rejection, beauty and fear shown in her work, makes the eternal ambiguous essence of life/ death and its origin visible, suggesting a poetic contradiction and mystery on the presence,'' the gallery said.

The exhibit runs through March 1. Atelier Hermes is located on the third floor of Maison Hermes, Sinsa-dong. Admission is free. Call (02) 544-7722.

cathy@koreatimes.co.kr