Natasha Jülicher

Natasha Jülicher divides her time between San Francisco, California and Europe. She was raised near the city of Muenster, Germany, in beautiful surroundings and close to nature. The close relationship to the natural world is very evident in her work, as is her interest in mythology.
Natasha moved to the U.S. at the age of 21 to study sculpture ( with Al Farrow) at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and received a BFA in 1996. Since then, she has shown extensively in both Germany and the U.S.

Statement

I continue to be intrigued with bronze. In the casting process you can add organic materials to the wax, which are burned out and transformed into the metal, therefore the perfect process for combining natural elements and sculpted wax into something new.
With the Angel or Birdwomen series I am tapping into the ancient consciousness of flight dating back to prehistory: the bird-masked man and bird staff in the cave paintings of Lascaux; the shaman’s power to leave his body and fly about the universe as a bird; the nightly flight of the Goddess Isis traveling between the life-world and the death-world.
The themes of freedom and flight connect me to a time after death of the physical body, when a different kind of freedom may be experienced. That is why the bodies of the Bird women are so thin and mass-less: the self is much smaller than the body, which reveals the essence of self. This weightlessness allows for flight and Transcendence – an analogy to personal development: the lighter the human spirit and the lesser the weight of personality, the easier changes are experienced.
In the Dreamgestures Series I am exploring the half conscious state of dreaming. The eyes of the figures are closed in an enraptured expression, hands and body postures are vague yet at the same time full of emotion.