SISTER 2022
polished stainless steel
length: 250 cm
edition of 3 + 1 Artist’s Proof
Exhibited:
Hanover Square, London, 2023
Art In Mayfair Sculpture Trail (with E & R Cyzer and Westminster City of Sculpture), June - July 2023
Sister, is an innovative new sculpture that redefnes the medium of polished stainless steel by cutting fgural forms through the surface, creating a dazzling interaction of shapes combining abstract and fgural elements. From a distance the sculpture is in the shape of an egg, representing the origin of biological life and a potent symbol of growth, regeneration and education, inspired by the artist’s sister, a teacher. Up close it becomes clear that the form of a woman encompasses the entire egg, like Breuer-Weil’s public sculpture of the same medium Soul where a person and the globe become one. Looking inside the shapes of the woman, hands, face, hair and other features create many refected tableaus, exploring ideas of fgurative representation. The work matches the oval form of the newly restored Hanover Square.
Sister installed in Hanover Square, London, 2023
Sister installed in Hanover Square, London, 2023
“It is the ultimate image of potential, of growth, of the future, of new beginnings, but also the idea of sculpture at its most pure and evocative, a seed of new art to come as I experiment with new media, but using the subject of the egg that has been present in my paintings since my student days at Saint Martins School of Art. I have intended the work to be both very simple and very complex. Many polished steel works are only about the outer shape and external refections. But by cutting into it, cracking it open, I have found it is possible to generate an incredible complexity of imagery that can warrant spending a great deal of time studying the sculpture interactively. I have cut out the image of a woman. It is a deliberate antithesis in form, texture, gender and medium to my series of sculptures of Brothers that have been exhibited widely.
Viewers can trace the forms as they interact with the sky and background architecture. The cut out forms refect one another and bounce back and forth, also mimicking the workings of the creative mind making connections and associations, with literally hundreds of differing angles and details that can be seen and captured in photographs. I have experimented with cutting out polished steel and many other surfaces: for many years I have drawn on polystyrene cups, spheres, and other shapes, including eggs, but in this steel piece I have transformed these more throwaway pieces into something more permanent. It allows me to combine drawing with sculpture, as I have cut a human fgure into the curved surfaces of the steel. This allows for innovative sculptural forms as the inner forms can be seen on the outside and vice versa. It is the frst step in a new evolution. But I also make reference to other images in the history of sculpture, two connecting hands are a very masculine image from the Renaissance, but here they are the hands of a maternal fgure that literally envelops the viewer. “
Sister installed in Hanover Square, London, 2023
Sister installed in Hanover Square, London, 2023
David Breuer-Weil with Sister, Hanover Square, London , 2023