Sharon Kopriva
(American/Texas, b. 1948)

"Untitled - Twins"

papier-mache, bone and mixed media sculpture
h. 26", w. 13", d. 10"

Provenance: Estate of Carol A. Straus, Houston, Texas.

Literature: Sharon Kopriva: Sculptures and Paintings, Houston, W. A. Graham Gallery, 1989.

Notes: Inspired by a 1982 trip to Peru, where she toured the Nazca graveyards and saw the sun-dried mummies with their bleached bones, papery skin and preserved hair, Kopriva embarked on a series of figural, often skeletal or desiccated, sculptures, vaguely religious in tone, composed of papier-mache, weathered bone and dark-dyed fabric. These figures, often nestled in cocoons equally reminiscent of the womb and the grave, are rendered in muddy sepia tones suggestive of burial under the dark earth or years spent resting in a dank catacomb. Explorations of life, death, spirituality and the dichotomy of permanence and impermanence, these works inevitably invoke an immediate visceral reaction from the viewer, as is evident with the sculpture offered here of two small skeletal figures encased together in seeming eternity.

27 x 14 x 11 in