Galerie Fons Welters - Amsterdam

Her Curves

In a living room. 
Legs crossed to form a point of departure, she follows the lines as they travel along biologically. 
Surprised, a word spills from her mouth.

The word itself is shaped by vibrations – air into sound – pushed into being. The trajectory from her lungs to throat to mouth forms a shape, and she wonders if this shape corresponds to what she feels, inside. She feels awkward here, in this living room, strange, like an appendage.

The thin membrane that separates her glows under fluorescents, and distance is established. Revealing, that neutrality might be an obstacle.

Olga Balema’s work investigates the relationship between the human body and forms of technological/digital production. Assuming an expanded notion of production – Balema’s work highlights biological, chemical, and mechanical processes in relation to contemporary networks – which are not bound to a dichotomy between that which is “online” and “offline”, but rather between many things at once, simultaneously and ongoing.

For Her Curves Balema focuses on the efficacy of biomorphic shapes in architecture and interior design. Defined through the form of a woman’s body and cell structures, Balema has developed sculptural works that double as ‘interior’ appendages subordinate to the gallery space. Questioning the rational of “returning to nature” Balema explores the potential of an interior environment that mimics its exterior surroundings and of an exterior environment that mimics its interior form. 

Enquiry