Harumi Klossowska de Rola is an artist and designer who creates powerful sculptural works and delicately crafted luxury jewellery inspired by the flora and fauna of the natural world. Her first encounter with a collection of precious gems at the age of seven captivated her imagination and inspired a lasting fascination with jewels and the splendour of nature.
Over the years she has developed a unique and sensitive rendering of creatures great and small, often fusing the aesthetic with the functional and creating, in her words, ‘something that you can wear, or you can exhibit on a shelf’. The exhibition brings together recent works inspired by ancient cultures and by the majesty of the wild animals that Harumi encounters in the forests that surround her home in Switzerland. From regal bronze cheetahs to twisting trees detailed with dainty birds, Hayawan pays homage to the sublime grace and form of the creatures who inhabit the earth, presenting exquisitely crafted works that remind us of the complexity and wonder of the animal kingdom.
Among the sculptural works on display is the majestic Mafdet II, a serene cheetah cast in bronze with intricate details of twenty-four carat gold. Inspired by the Ancient Egyptian goddess of justice, this sculpture appears to cry tears of gold, with 24 carat gilded touches animating the head. Another highlight of the exhibition is the extraordinary bench in the form of a dynamic crocodile, called Sobek, taking inspiration from the Egyptian god of the pharaohs' power, of fertility, and of military success. The work is delicately gilded with highlights of 24 carat gold, accentuating the weathered skin of the creature, and underlining its associations with the divine.
The delicate beauty of plants and flora has a strong presence in the presentation alongside the animal kingdom. The slender Ceres pays homage to the Roman goddess of architecture in the form of a wheatsheaf with stems exploding outwards, reaching towards the sky. Another work, Tree with Single Bird, is an intricate example of the artist’s playful attentiveness to the natural world – the tiny bird, almost invisible at first among the twisting branches and occasional leaf, is a tribute to the songbirds that Harumi sees in the forests surrounding her home, chirping their joy at the dawn of a new morning.
Together, the works on display evoke the sacredness and beauty of the natural world. The animals of Harumi Klossowska de Rola are totemic entities which, like in shamanism, play a role as true masters capable of creating a bridge between nature and man, the visible and the invisible, the spirit and the earth.
