Signs of life

Description

Working the hard granite, Ole Christensen has created two soft, curved elements that follow and fuse with one another, and which – depending on the eyes of the beholder – form a bird, a phallos, or a germinating seed. This sculpture and its title refer to nature as a creating, life-giving force.

Christensen’s work typically begins with an organic object, and although he has not worked in a conventionally figurative way, this sculpture can be seen as an abstraction of something living. The artist has called the shape forth out of the stone by virtue of his intimate knowledge of the possibilities and limitations of his material. In the case of this sculpture, not only the shape but the very surface of the rock itself seems almost irresistibly soft and smooth – as though created this way by nature itself.

The sculpture was acquired by the Danish Arts Foundation for installation near the town hall of what was, at that time, the Municipality of Bov.