How are a colored pencil and a grinder alike? Silvia Westphalen makes use of both in her most recent show

In previous interviews with the sculptor Silvia Westfalen, the sharp sounds of a grinder used to be added to his voice, a metallic moan that resonates between clouds of travertine marble dust. But this time we are not in the artist’s workshop, but in the silent gallery of the Inca Garcilaso Cultural Center. Her works are already available, some made throughout these two years of pandemic, and others that could form a brief anthology of her career. “Selva” is the name of the exhibition that she will inaugurate next Tuesday, March 22, in which she persists in her exploration of stone, which she cuts and slices to form figures that refer us to fragile forms of nature.

Westphalen, who lived successively in Lima, Rome, Mexico City and Portugal, where he directed the Stone Sculpture Department of the Cultural Center of Évora, only to return to Peru 20 years ago, has spent a good part of the last few years touring the Peruvian Amazone. His last experience was in the village of Cocachimba, near the Gocta falls, in the department of Amazonas: his plan, in addition to reconnecting with nature, something very enriching for his work, was to make a series of geoglyphs. At an altitude of 1,800 meters, this area of ​​high jungle presents fascinating rock formations, although the stones are too hard for the equipment the artist brought. Three weeks later, she managed to make a figure on the stone, before accidentally, a sharp edge caused a cut at thigh height. An emergency visit to the medical post and six stitches later, she had to give up. However, in the gallery the trip becomes safer: In “Selva”, the artist accompanies her sculptural work with 13 drawings made with colored pencils.

Your sculptures pose a curious relationship with the observer. There are pieces that need to be seen from below, in the manner of totems. Others seem more like offerings that force us to lower our heads. There is also a different relationship in works that hang on the wall or are on the floor. How do you think that relationship between piece and observer?

I really like the closeness between my work and people’s hands. In fact, in the exhibition we are going to put up a notice that says “touching is allowed”, something that seems very important to me: to awaken the sense of touch.

Playing a work is a possibility that is usually prohibited…

And more so in these times of pandemic, when no one dares to touch anything. I am also interested in this invitation to look at the pieces from above, as when one observes the flow of water in a river.

A way to replicate the approach to art with that of nature. The traditional way of approaching art is from a canonical dimension: a pedestal separates us from it…

Yes. I have always had that desire to meet the viewer. I would very much like to put sculptures in public spaces, to have them very close, without pedestals, to forget that idea of ​​a sculpture out of reach of people, quite the contrary.

Much is said about the reference in your work to organic forms, but there are many pieces that generate a classic echo. There are pieces that, due to their shapes and rhythms, remind us of canonical examples of sculpture, “The Victory of Samothrace”, for example. Does your work have a wink with the classics?

Consciously, no. I think much more in this approach to nature, with its forms so diverse and so changing. However, it is true that our imagination will always be marked by images from the history of sculpture that have marked us, both me and the viewer.

Does the material itself impose its narrative?

As well. I start a lot from the material, from the shape of the stone, which is where the shapes that I am going to give it come from. For example, I had a stone with very strange shapes, with stalactites inside. I tried to maintain that presence and work from there, leaving those holes and those textures, giving it a consistent shape. That piece is very strange: a travertine with a layer of onyx, which creates circular waves that dictated the shapes to me. It took me a lot of work and time to finish it. Johanna Hamman’s hand was also there: I had left a part unworked, just like that, but she told me: No, no… you have to work it all! So I did it.

Is each stone a different requirement?

I always use travertines of very different colors. There is also onyx and alabaster, which are so rich to work with because they are very soft, and have a particular refraction of light. I love alabaster.

How much has the loneliness to which the pandemic subjected us had to do with this exhibition?

The first few months, when I couldn’t go to my workshop, I devoted myself entirely to drawing. They are works on paper that are included in the sample. It was another exploration of shapes, always closely linked to nature, to the contemplation of shapes. Those drawings have passed to a later work, to the stone. I really enjoyed going back to the workshop when the quarantine was lifted. It was a necessary time to get into another rhythm, observe other things, dedicate myself to reading. I have always had the tendency to continue working, to think of my work as something always continuous. But this slowdown had something good. We should not wait for a pandemic to stop and think.

What differences do you find between a colored pencil and a grinder?

There is a great freedom with the pencil, the total freedom to find the forms that one wants. With the grinder, however, you have the possibility to enter the form in its three dimensions, which is what I love. They are two very different ways of working, certainly, but I always think that, for me, the grinder is also like a pencil. I have the same attitude when facing paper as I face stone. It’s about starting to draw and see what happens.

Your pieces bind us with a primitive feeling, with the basic language of sculpture. Maintaining abstraction, you talk to us about the origins of sculpture. Today, when much of art has become an effect and a gesture that seeks to be ingenious, but ends up being very light. What do you pursue with your work?

Contact with the material for me is very necessary. Working with stone for so long has built a very intense relationship, which, as you say, is something you don’t see as much anymore. The artists move from one material to another, without establishing a strong relationship with them. In fact, time, what it takes to create a work, is something that marks my work.

Where: Inca Garcilaso Cultural Center of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jr. Ucayali 391, Lima. Opening: Tuesday, March 22, 12 noon. Season: Until May 8, Tuesday through Friday from 10 am to 8 pm; Saturdays, Sundays, from 10 am to 6 pm. Entry: free.