Harumi Klossowska de Rola is a sculptor who makes bronze sculptures inspired by the flora and fauna of the natural world. Her works, cast in bronze and often hand-finished with details of precious metals, these works are also infused with references to the deities of ancient and contemporary cultures, for whom animals and nature offer an earthly connection to the divine.

The alert and regal deer Daal (2022) demonstrates the artist's virtuosity in capturing the beauty and complexity of wild creatures through her mastery of the sculptural medium. With her unique rendering of the deer's form, the artist achieves a distillation of the essence of the animal, its slender back suggesting its nimbleness, while its firm stance and upward gaze emphasise its power and serenity.

This artwork takes its name from the goddess of the hunt in Georgian mythology, Daal, a deity renowned for her grace and beauty. In the Georgian tradition, she is associated with the deer, sometimes even adopting the animal's form. With flecks of gold leaf detailing the deer's ears, head and tail, the artist imbues the present work with a sense of the divine, reiterating the historic associations between animals such as this and the spiritual world. Daal enters into a great tradition of bronze statuary honouring beliefs and celebrating the natural world; the deer's steady gaze seeming to reach beyond the known world into a greater depth beyond, perhaps towards the realm of the divine.