Organic Sculpture-Wasserschlange

Organic Sculpture Wasserschlange

Inspiration comes from all sides.
At the great exhibition of Gustav - Klimt, inspired by Van Gogh, Rodin, Matisse - in the fall of 2022 in Amsterdam also hung his painting Wasserschlangen 2.

When I looked at the main figure in the painting I immediately recognized in this the shape of cabinet legs with which I have already made several sculptures. 
Immediately there was the challenge of executing the seductive look of this painted nude figure in wood. 
With the somewhat contrived look from beneath a substantial head of hair looking at the viewer obliquely upwards. The shapely naked body with the creamy white skin.
Translating this from a two-dimensional image to a 3-dimensional organic sculpture.

Organic sculpture Wasserschlange

The stretched, horizontal position of the body with the head turned toward the viewer is like a photograph. A snapshot of a Wasserschlange swimming by. She is not lying still. The flowing wave of shoulder, buttocks and legs suggests a slow, elegant gliding along. In which the viewer is given a glimpse into the wonderful, mysterious underwater world.

The gaze is on the viewer, slightly upward from the corner of her eye. But as a spectator, you still get the impression that she is also looking at a larger person or something to your left.

The head

In my first version of the head I had applied the face, namely the position of the mouth, nose and eyes, with the 2 dimensional perspective of the painting on the wooden ball. This was in the expectation of best enabling the viewer of the 3D figurine to experience the above description. But this resulted in a distorted face in the 3-dimensional version.

For the 3D version, mouth, nose and eyes had to be placed en face. Whereby the positioning of the head ( the rotation and place on the shoulders ) and the direction of the pupils in the eye box, could provide the intended effect.

The body

For the body of this organic sculpture, two cabinet legs attached to each other in mirror image were used.

With the belt sander, part of this shape was sanded away, as minimally as possible, in several places. This is to shape the ends, the feet and shoulders, a little more elegantly.

And in the middle to make the buttocks stand out nicely. On the back, the spine is indicated.

From the sides the arms and breasts can be seen.
At the front of the image the right arm is bent under the body.
On the back, the left arm runs parallel to the body.

The hair

The hair is made of wood shavings from planks of different thickness and type of wood, namely pine and beech.

The strips of shavings are naturally strongly curled. If I had used these so strongly curled for the 3D version, my Wasserschlange would have had frizzy hair.

By immersing the wood shavings in water and allowing them to become pliable, they can be reshaped.
Rolled out between paper with a paperweight and allowed to dry, this produced long smooth strips of thin wood. With these I had the head with straight hair as in the painting.
But unfortunately there was little charming about this. Thus she had a head of hair that looked like straw.

By twisting the soaked wood shavings around a stick and letting them dry, I got curly locks of hair.
This resulted in what I thought was a beautiful head of hair.

The underwater world

Now I had a lily-white, naked female organic sculpture.
But without Klimt's colorful rendering of the botanical environment in which she swims around.

One possibility was to add a vertical back wall, paint it and place the figure in front of it.
However, this would involve largely eliminating the left body side and weakening the 3D rendition.

Hence the painting of the colorful underwater world on the body itself.
And thus creating the illusion that she is swimming among this underwater plant world.

Her movement from left to right is indicated by the way the weed flows with her movement.

The dark colored pedestal represents the deeper waters where less light penetrates.
Above which she slowly glides on the translucent perspex rod.

Overall dimensions organic sculpture Wasserschlange
High 35 cm
Wide 35 cm
Deep 8.5 cm

Sizes sculpture
High 12 cm
Wide 35 cm
Deep 8 cm

Materials organic sculpture Wasserschlange

beech wood
pine wood
transparent paint
glass stones and beads
pins
plexiglass rod
gold leaf