Two angels visited vanessa german last fall, one sharing a word – Olmec – and the other urging the artist to continue to practice the spiritual in her art. The resulting series of monumental head sculptures at Chelsea’s Kasmin Gallery are extravagantly rich in their ornamentation, masterful in their collage technique and abundant in references to the sacred. Also a writer, german is as generous with her words as her materials and recounts (@vanessalgerman) not only the visitation that inspired the heads but explains that she has developed her work to include energy-bearing stones, stars, words, numbers and animal forms. Here, a head with elaborate decoration and a quilted backing bears a long, poetic list of not just of materials but of concepts on the gallery’s checklist, ending in ‘have faith.’ (On view in Chelsea through May 10th).
vanessa german, bring light in through the top of your head, wood, plaster, foam, plaster gauze, sweet kisses, love, gold chain purse, rose quartz butterflies, the sound of horns honking out of the hotel window, cut glass, lucky feet in rose quartz from the window of the eye, have faith. 79 x 51 x 43 inches, 2025.vanessa german, bring light in through the top of your head, wood, plaster, foam, plaster gauze, sweet kisses, love, gold chain purse, rose quartz butterflies, the sound of horns honking out of the hotel window, cut glass, lucky feet in rose quartz from the window of the eye, have faith. 79 x 51 x 43 inches, 2025.vanessa german, bring light in through the top of your head, wood, plaster, foam, plaster gauze, sweet kisses, love, gold chain purse, rose quartz butterflies, the sound of horns honking out of the hotel window, cut glass, lucky feet in rose quartz from the window of the eye, have faith. 79 x 51 x 43 inches, 2025.
