Sylva Hanuise, Sculpteur, Grand-Halleux, Belgique

When I sculpt, I do something vital for me. This fills up an essential need. Is it maybe a way of assuming my loneliness, my uniqueness and of sharing it after? Would this be art? An act made by a human being to assume his solitude and to share it afterwards?

I am always surprised to see that most of my sculptures go through knots. What I mean is that I sculpt very small movements that take me a lot of time, on which I focus all my attention and then eventually I discover that they are no use in this room, that everything works better without them, and I take them away; and at the same time, if I had not made them, something would not have been there.

There are some gestures that cannot wait. When they are there, their presence is such that they are my entire body. They are like a delivery, nothing can differ them. The force is there, integrated in the body, incorporated. It is a birth. I can refuse it but what would be the sense of such a refusal? It goes against life, my life, my emotion. I never refuse it, that is the privilege that I have given myself thanks to sculpting. It is not me working the stone, but the stone working me, leaving me in peace.

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