Hourglass

Buenos Aires-born, Tel Aviv-raised artist Gabriela Vainsencher approaches her sculptures as extensions of herself as a woman and a mother, rooted in the ancient traditions of ceramics. Recognizing her medium’s inherent connection to the earth, Vainsencher endeavors to honor the organic desires of different types of clay, adapting her final product to reflect a harmony of her intentions and the material. Hourglass is a porcelain sculpture featuring a central hourglass shape, similar to a cervix, with pink stones passing through a narrow opening. The hourglass is bordered by bulges reminiscent of swollen wombs, while the darkening of the bottom half of the hourglass resembles the color of dried blood. Intoning a cyclical passage of time, the piece reflects on the biological rhythm of menstruation as a process of death and rebirth. Vainsencher proposes a series of juxtapositions including mythology and modernity, strength and fragility, destruction and renewal, and the consistency of change. The hourglass highlights the body’s resiliency, but also the reality of a biological time limit.

Gabriela Vainsencher

2023