Siobhan Hapaska
(1963 - ) |
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Surreal, utopian sculptures Art Work
| Name: |
Siobhan Hapaska |
| Gender: |
Female |
| Place of Birth: |
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| Nationality: |
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| Birth: |
1963 |
| Death: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Surreal, utopian sculptures |
| Medium: |
Mixed media |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Sculpture
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Biography
The Belfast-born sculptor Siobhan Hapaska trained at Middlesex Polytechnic and Goldsmiths College. In the context of art history, the polished forms of her sculptures such as Land (1998), shown in the British Council's exhibition Landscape in 2000, seem to derive from weathered, organic materials, and are descendants of twentieth-century abstraction. But Hapaska often uses fiberglass, making the viewer think instead of aerodynamic 'high-tech' designs. The weird, inconclusive protuberances that appear to be elbowing their way out of her sculptures even evoke the terrifying liquid-metal metamorphosis that takes place in the film Terminator 2. Land also looks like an alien planet, studded with still pools and arid air plants. Hapaska herself describes her work as 'lost', and it could be read in this light as representing the human condition as one of spiritual dislocation and desolation, despite our attempts to reach Utopia through technological progress
The viewer's desire to reach towards some understanding of her work, which Hapaska both prompts and prevents, is suggested in some of her titles, such as Want and Hanker (both 1997). She has even made a holy figure to help us on our interpretative way. Her waxwork Saint Christopher (1995) may bless our journey towards understanding, but his legs, worn down to grotesque stumps, are evidence of the cost of taking a trajectory into the unknown. He was shown in Hapaska's exhibition Saint Christopher's Legless held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, in 1995-6.
Religion is also 'sent up' in Hapaska's waxwork The Inquisitor (1997). A Jesuit priest holds an egg-shaped object that speaks in Latin. Hapaska ridicules the belief that Catholicism could offer anything more than a rhythmic, but redundant, soundtrack to life. The sense of entrapment in a meaningless relationship with the Church is heightened by the presence of another sculpture, Delirious (1996) (often shown alongside The Inquisitor), Trapped in stocks, like a criminal, this blob-being hums Elvis Presley's "Love me Tender'. Between the priest with his egg, and the sentimental lump, there can be no real communion. |
Samples of Work
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