Carole Solvay
b. 1954, Belgium
Carole Solvay grew up in the countryside where life was still dictated by the seasons. As a child, she spent hours following the flight of swallows and the motion of the wind sweeping the grass, and listening to the leaves rustling in the threes… “For me, threes are also an entire universe”, she observed.
At first, Solvay enrolled at art school, but realized after a few weeks that being confined by academic assignments did not suit her. She’s always worked instinctively, preferring to discover things at her own pace and in her own fashion:
— I have a great need for silence and solitude, and my work is intrinsically linked to my inner growth. My pieces take time to build, the interrelationship of space and time is particularly important to me. The work that goes into creating my pieces is extremely repetitive – a long, painstaking and daily affair, but it suits me perfectly. While I create, I listen to music or radio interviews. I have multiple piece in progress at the same time, and the one I choose to focus on at any given moment is determined by my state of mind. Some of them require a great deal of accuracy and concentration, conversely, seeking out points of tension and balance actually feels like play. It can happen that I’ll spend weeks on a project only to completely change course and to eventually go in a completely different direction. In fact, the final result invariably differs from the initial idea.
— But why feathers ?
— My pieces are inspired by nature, and my life is filled with stories about birds. I spent hours watching them, and I came to know them very well. I never made a conscious decision to work with feathers. It just happened, but each new exploration leads to the next, and the story is not over. A feather’s specific qualities allow for different things to be expressed, so I choose the structure and properties of my materials carefully and then adapt them to my needs. I prefer ordinary feathers, particulary sturdy ones like wing or tail feathers. Wire complements the process – I can simply bend it instead of tying a knot. And just like with a pencil stroke, I can use it to draw aline between feathers and create a shape for the whole.
Interview by Alain Chang, 2019
Carole Solvay, born in 1954 in la Hulpe, Belgium, is a self-taugh artist who lives and works in Brussels.
Carole Solvay exhibits regularly in Belgium and abroad. Carole has exhibited at the Mube, Brazilian Museum of Sculpture, São Paulo, Brazil, more recently at the Fondazione Ghisla Art Collection, Locarno, Switzerland and at the Domaine de Chaumont sur Loire in France as part of the Saison d'Art 2021.
Her works have been included in public collections as well as in many important private collections. In 2019, it is the publication of the book, To Move Without Noise, the first to explore the work of contemporary Belgian visual artist Carole Solvay. This publication illustrates more than 100 of her works, accompanied by short quotations from Solvay's favorite literary works by Ingeborg Bachmann, T.S Eliot, Nâzim Hikmet, Carson McCullers, Sylvia Plath, Fernando Pessoa, Joseph Roth and many others.
Read more...
Carole Solvay grew up in the countryside where life was still dictated by the seasons. As a child, she spent hours following the flight of swallows and the motion of the wind sweeping the grass, and listening to the leaves rustling in the threes… “For me, threes are also an entire universe”, she observed.
At first, Solvay enrolled at art school, but realized after a few weeks that being confined by academic assignments did not suit her. She’s always worked instinctively, preferring to discover things at her own pace and in her own fashion:
— I have a great need for silence and solitude, and my work is intrinsically linked to my inner growth. My pieces take time to build, the interrelationship of space and time is particularly important to me. The work that goes into creating my pieces is extremely repetitive – a long, painstaking and daily affair, but it suits me perfectly. While I create, I listen to music or radio interviews. I have multiple piece in progress at the same time, and the one I choose to focus on at any given moment is determined by my state of mind. Some of them require a great deal of accuracy and concentration, conversely, seeking out points of tension and balance actually feels like play. It can happen that I’ll spend weeks on a project only to completely change course and to eventually go in a completely different direction. In fact, the final result invariably differs from the initial idea.
— But why feathers ?
— My pieces are inspired by nature, and my life is filled with stories about birds. I spent hours watching them, and I came to know them very well. I never made a conscious decision to work with feathers. It just happened, but each new exploration leads to the next, and the story is not over. A feather’s specific qualities allow for different things to be expressed, so I choose the structure and properties of my materials carefully and then adapt them to my needs. I prefer ordinary feathers, particulary sturdy ones like wing or tail feathers. Wire complements the process – I can simply bend it instead of tying a knot. And just like with a pencil stroke, I can use it to draw aline between feathers and create a shape for the whole.
Interview by Alain Chang, 2019
Carole Solvay, born in 1954 in la Hulpe, Belgium, is a self-taugh artist who lives and works in Brussels.
Carole Solvay exhibits regularly in Belgium and abroad. Carole has exhibited at the Mube, Brazilian Museum of Sculpture, São Paulo, Brazil, more recently at the Fondazione Ghisla Art Collection, Locarno, Switzerland and at the Domaine de Chaumont sur Loire in France as part of the Saison d'Art 2021.
Her works have been included in public collections as well as in many important private collections. In 2019, it is the publication of the book, To Move Without Noise, the first to explore the work of contemporary Belgian visual artist Carole Solvay. This publication illustrates more than 100 of her works, accompanied by short quotations from Solvay's favorite literary works by Ingeborg Bachmann, T.S Eliot, Nâzim Hikmet, Carson McCullers, Sylvia Plath, Fernando Pessoa, Joseph Roth and many others.
Read more...
— I have a great need for silence and solitude, and my work is intrinsically linked to my inner growth. My pieces take time to build, the interrelationship of space and time is particularly important to me. The work that goes into creating my pieces is extremely repetitive – a long, painstaking and daily affair, but it suits me perfectly. While I create, I listen to music or radio interviews. I have multiple piece in progress at the same time, and the one I choose to focus on at any given moment is determined by my state of mind. Some of them require a great deal of accuracy and concentration, conversely, seeking out points of tension and balance actually feels like play. It can happen that I’ll spend weeks on a project only to completely change course and to eventually go in a completely different direction. In fact, the final result invariably differs from the initial idea.
— But why feathers ?
— My pieces are inspired by nature, and my life is filled with stories about birds. I spent hours watching them, and I came to know them very well. I never made a conscious decision to work with feathers. It just happened, but each new exploration leads to the next, and the story is not over. A feather’s specific qualities allow for different things to be expressed, so I choose the structure and properties of my materials carefully and then adapt them to my needs. I prefer ordinary feathers, particulary sturdy ones like wing or tail feathers. Wire complements the process – I can simply bend it instead of tying a knot. And just like with a pencil stroke, I can use it to draw aline between feathers and create a shape for the whole.
Interview by Alain Chang, 2019
Carole Solvay, born in 1954 in la Hulpe, Belgium, is a self-taugh artist who lives and works in Brussels.
Carole Solvay exhibits regularly in Belgium and abroad. Carole has exhibited at the Mube, Brazilian Museum of Sculpture, São Paulo, Brazil, more recently at the Fondazione Ghisla Art Collection, Locarno, Switzerland and at the Domaine de Chaumont sur Loire in France as part of the Saison d'Art 2021.
Her works have been included in public collections as well as in many important private collections. In 2019, it is the publication of the book, To Move Without Noise, the first to explore the work of contemporary Belgian visual artist Carole Solvay. This publication illustrates more than 100 of her works, accompanied by short quotations from Solvay's favorite literary works by Ingeborg Bachmann, T.S Eliot, Nâzim Hikmet, Carson McCullers, Sylvia Plath, Fernando Pessoa, Joseph Roth and many others.
