CLARA SÁNCHEZ SALA: FROM IVORY TO LIVER-TONE

Del marfil al color hígado [From Ivory to Liver-Tone] unfolds as a sustained exploration of the boundaries between matter and body. The project emerges from a persistent search to confer corporeal weight to the inanimate, activating the illusion of life in sculptural forms through gestures that move between the ritual and the everyday.

Halfway between the intimacy of the gesture and the resonance of the classical, the works combine diverse materials—such as makeup—with others of sculptural tradition and historical weight, like wax, silk, wood, or bronze. This friction between the domestic and the noble challenges conventional hierarchies, proposing a dialogue between the sensory experience of the body and the abstraction of being.

The installation generates a space where the sculptural seems to brush against the human, not through formal mimesis, but through its ability to evoke presence. Here, the inanimate takes on flesh, breathes life. From Ivory to Liver-Tone is a reflection on the possibility of inhabiting sculpture.

The exhibition departs from an approach that understands sculpture not as a closed, finished object, but as a bodily and ritual process, open to time, transformation, and sensory experience. In this transition, the use of everyday materials from the domestic sphere, such as makeup or parquet flooring from a home, is observed and worked through a sculptural lens. All of the project’s pieces originate from domestic objects to generate an ensemble that breathes life into inert materials, inhabiting them within the domestic space.

The project’s title establishes a direct reference to two classical sculptural materials: ivory and bronze. On the one hand, ivory evokes a symbolic relationship with the human bone, not only because of its whitish and yellowish tones, but also due to its history laden with corporeal connotations. On the other hand, “liver color” alludes to a specific patina applied to bronze in classical sculpture, known as hepatizon, which acquired a dark, reddish hue similar to that of the organ after which it was named. Both materials, in their tactile and visual qualities, seem to lean toward the idea of the body, as if the inanimate were attempting to simulate vital presence—signaling a symbolic passage from inert to living, and recovering the mythical gesture of Pygmalion.

Full catalog here

Clara Sánchez Sala
Un velo davanti algli occhi (Luini)
2025
Makeup on silk
95 x 95 x 4 cm

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Clara Sánchez Sala
Omphalós y pedúnculos
2025
Brass
7 x 92 x 1 cm

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Clara Sánchez Sala
Tous les revêtements de la maison
2025
Photograph on wooden platform
100 x 200 x 4 cm

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