2018
Ex Voto is the diary of the journey that led me to become a “Palermitana”, from my first visit looking for a home, to the present in my everyday life. I scoured the city on foot for months photographing places, often focusing on details and what is often overlooked.
I visited those places again and again, each time discovering something new. In my heart, I feel like an urban explorer.
2013
The industrial components that make up this piece are the epitome of solidity: dark, steel, apparently produced for a ruthlessly utilitarian purpose. And yet, freed from their context within the machine, and re-assembled, Nathalie Hambro has given them a fresh delicacy. Set up in what at first seems a capricious arrangement we are able to examine their basic form for its own sake.
ABATE ZANETTI – MURANO PRIZE
2013
The work entitled ROYGBIV, takes its title from the first letter of each colour of the rainbow. The sculpture is made up of 7 clear glass bricks, each one contains within a different colour ball, although the ball is perfected round, its seems distorted as the bricks have an irregular shape. The magnified and distorted inserts are a reference of the water of the Lagoon. I also wanted to confuse perception of a heavy industrial element (brick) transcribed here as to something weightless and transparent, the contrast of the two is part of the concept, as is the various symbols relating to numero 7.
CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW
2014
Hambro was commissioned to make 2 sculptures to incorporated in the garden of one of the exhibitors. The client’s structure Khora was an imposing circular domed winter garden. Hambro created two dramatic, minimalist steel sculptures, these environmental works were imposing yet restrained.
Sculptures
Pb 82 – 1, lead, 2017, unique work
Pb 82 – 2, lead, 2017, unique work
Hambro who worked with various metal, steel, stainless steel, copper, brass and bronze, wanted to experiment with lead, a heavy metal, denser than most common materials, its appearance and weight, both conflict and challenge our perception. To her lead, and industrial felt have an artistic parallel that feed her creative input.
Lead is silvery-grey with a kind of velvety lustre, with extreme malleability. The use of lead roofing was traditional for English medieval churches and cathedrals, the majority of most remarkable historic buildings also incorporate some other form of leadwork, whether be decorative rainwater heads, downpipes or large areas of plain lead sheet that cover church spires and flèches, all a reference important to the artist. Lead is a chemical element with symbol Pb and atomic 82.
2012
Hambro visited several time a state of the art recycling plant, there she saw a kind of beauty at every stages of the process. She focused on the colourful piled-up trash with its consumerism references, and on one of the final stage, when the processed mass comes out and is dropped in cold water, solidifying into various intricate shapes.
copyright – NATHALIE HAMBRO © 2019