See, Touch ​​​​​​​& Feel

Sculptor HELAINE BLUMENFELD’s organic forms convey a compelling narrative of renewal, energy and hope, observes SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESSOP

- Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop

STANDING AT 3M tall on the front lawn of the over-900-year-old Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire, England, Helaine Blumenfeld’s large bronze sculpture is made of three monumental pieces and evokes three torsos possibly carrying one another.

As it’s often with the sculptor’s very organic works, the three blocks in a lovely green patina could have been configured differently. Here they provide just enough room for the viewer to stand among them and feel embraced by the form.

“This is a complex piece. People have to give something of themselves to it; it doesn’t just speak to them, they have to speak back to the work,” remarks the American, who is regarded as among the most important sculptors of her generation. She is also often described as an heir apparent to Henry Moore, with whom she had a joint exhibition in 1985 in New York.

Blumenfeld says she wanted the work, titled Illusion, to create a sense of foreboding. “If you are inside, you’re feeling contained by it, but it’s not tranquil, it’s not harmonious. It reflects, in a sense, the world we’re living in, which is not quite in harmony, almost in disharmony, and yet it also shows how it could look harmonious and how the pieces can give each other strength.”

The celebrated artist has spent most of her career expressing very personal feelings such as love, hope and despair, but more recently her abstracted forms have been responding to developments in the wider world. “I’m overwhelmed by the world we live in, by the lack of stability, by the chaos, and complete lack of leadership. We are forgetting we are all human and are all part of something that is more important than differences,” she says, although she insists she’s still an optimist.