Yves Dana | Citadelle

Smithson Plaza, St James's St, SW1A 1HA

Yves Dana , ‘Conversations secrètes’, 2001 , Bronze , Various sizes, from 340 x 100 x 35 to 320 x 90 x 30cm and ‘Stèle’, 2022 Swedish Basalt 333 x 25 x 40cm

Encounter is pleased to announce the outdoor installation of a new bronze sculpture by Irish artist Eva Rothschild (born 1971, Dublin), located at Smithson Plaza in St. James, London, in collaboration with Waddington Custot.

Now on view at Smithson Plaza, @yves_dana 's sculptures 'Conversations secrètes', 2001, and 'Stèle', 2022, are installed in dialogue with their architectural surroundings.

Familiars is part of a new series in bronze which explores Rothschild’s interest in form, materiality and the hovering between abstraction and figuration. The sculpture possesses an indeterminate, shimmering quality, in contrast to her signature hard- edge black forms that sharply determine the space around them. Human-scale and painted in pastel hues, it carries a fresh vulnerability: in spite of its material, its unexpectedly soft and pensive nature invites a closer, more direct encounter with the body than their predecessors might have.

Over the last twenty-five years, Eva Rothschild’s sculptural practice has included both intimate exhibitions and large-scale public projects across Europe and the United States. Underpinned by the legacy of modernist sculpture – notably the work of Barbara Hepworth, Constantin Brâncuși, and Eva Hesse - and the enduring forms of classical architecture, Rothschild’s visual vocabulary also engages with the haphazard and aggressive realities of the contemporary built environment. Working with both traditional and new materials, including bronze, ceramic, polystyrene, Jesmonite and Perspex, she refers to her practice as ‘expansive’. Rothschild's sculptures are often episodic – her lexicon includes: totemic stacks, interlocking triangles, striped linear forms and block work partitions. Rothschild’s work is frequently presented as accumulated objects rather than singular solid form sculptures. Understanding how objects acquire power, and perhaps even magical or spiritual meaning through the transcendent power of looking is central to her sculptural practice.

Eva Rothschild RA (born 1971) is an Irish artist based in London.

Yves Dana

Yves Dana (b.1959, Alexandria, Egypt) creates sculptures in stone, plaster and bronze inspired by the restrained, pared-back forms of ancient Egyptian sculpture. In 1961, the Dana family left Egypt for Switzerland, where the artist settled. After studying Sociology at the University of Lausanne (1979–1981), Dana set up his first sculpture studio and earned an MFA from l’École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Geneva, in 1983. From then on, Dana devoted his time entirely to sculpture and spent years exploring different materials, principally iron, quickly achieving recognition with regular exhibitions.

In 1996, a trip to Egypt – which had retained a powerful appeal during Dana’s years in Switzerland – proved transformative to his work. Over six months, Dana researched ancient Egyptian sculpture, fascinated with its powerful grace and purity of form. Working on the edges of the Egyptian desert, Dana started to sculpt with plaster and stone, redirecting his aesthetic toward simpler forms. This period notably marked the beginning of his Stèles series, modelled on the ancient stone slabs engraved with hieratic script he had encountered. The distinctive clean lines and minimalist carving of Cycladic idols proved a further source of inspiration.

Dana sources the best quality stone from around the world, including limestone from Egypt, France and Turkey, serpentine from Italy and diabase from Germany. He combines innovative carving techniques with traditional tools to create precise planar forms. With each work created over several weeks or months, the physicality of carving stone, with deep sensitivity to its tones and texture, is evident in the subtlest details of each work.

In 1987, at the suggestion of the City of Lausanne, Dana moved his studio to the Orangerie of Parc Mon Repos. The sunlit 19th-century orangery offered a double-height space that allowed Dana to create work on a larger scale. His monumental sculptures are in public spaces worldwide, including in the United States of America, France, Greece, Switzerland and Japan. Dana’s work has been selected for important museums and gallery exhibitions, including the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain; Musée Jenisch, Vevey, Switzerland; Jan Krugier Gallery, New York and Galerie Krugier-Ditesheim, Geneva. In 2015, Dana’s works were presented in a retrospective exhibition at Arlaud Museum, Lausanne and chronicled in a significant 420-page monograph. The same year, he received the Grand Prix from the Vaudoise Foundation for Culture.

Yves Dana's work is now regularly exhibited not only in Spain but also in France, Italy, Belgium, England, Singapore, Japan and the United States.

Various monographies have been published to this date, with the collaboration of renowned writers such as Bertil Galland (1988), Jacques Chessex (1996), Bernard Noël (2000), Charles Juliet (2008), Tahar ben Jelloun (2015) book and catalogue raisonné in two volumes.

Yves Dana lives and works in Lausanne, Switzerland.