Solange Knowles

The artist uses live render sessions to refine proportion studies and explore scale and material within sculpture schematics using 3D software.

“I have very, very, clear visions of the spirits that I want to bring to life through my work. A lot of times it starts with a sketch. I am not the best drawer, but the meditative practice of defining lines and symmetry and geometry has been very grounding to the noise in my mind and is the foundation for the objects I see in my imagination.”

— Solange Knowles

The sphere is a very sacred shape in Solange's practice, as seen here in a hand-blown glass decanter from Saint Heron's Small Matter Art Objects collection.

Research is a critical part of Solange's process, both online and offline, in the form of printed references as well as her own sketches done in graphite and pen.

“Ideating in the Saint Heron studio is incredibly useful as a resource for materiality. I love working with materials that come from the earth and seeing the transition of a material like glass evolve from dust and fire to form. Working amongst the Ekoi masks, which are materialized with so many layers of living matter into these phenomenal spirited sculptures is a huge compass for me.”

— Solange Knowles

This prototype helped Solange to imagine the functionality within the fabrication process by imagining a removable orb affixed in the middle of the form.

“Resin is my material first love. It is always very helpful to imagine the form first in transparency and with luminosity. It's how I mirror myself within the form.”

— Solange Knowles

Solange's first self-casted resin form studies from 2020.

“During the pandemic, I used Chrome to research how to create my own molds and cure my own resin form studies. These first forms I created were the foundation for me to continue to build more in depth ideas with more complex shapes and geometry.”

— Solange Knowles

“I used plexiglass to create my own early models of the sculptures. Doing this on my own, at this scale, helped me to understand and map out where seams needed to be in the fabrication process knowing that I wanted the copper sheets to appear as monolithic as possible while honoring the functionality of the material being easier to work with in large sheets.”

— Solange Knowles

“One of the things that excites me about working with copper, is the idea of both human to material charge, and material to human charge. This idea that copper houses all of these electrical atoms that can transmit that type of energy to the people engaging with it becomes performance in itself.”

— Solange Knowles

“When I'm using Chrome, there are at least 50 tabs open. Research is so vital to me, so I don't want to close anything because I don't want to chance risking where my information lives.”

— Solange Knowles

Tab groups in Chrome can help organize your browsing.

“I have spent a lot of time putting windows side by side and switching between them as I ideate and gather information and images for research. I have a very visual mind's eye and so I love being able to now have the functionality to do this through the split view feature. Juxtaposition is such a powerful tool in imagining how nuanced ideas sit side by side and I love being able to do this in real time.”

— Solange Knowles

To get a better understanding of how her sculpture might come to life, Solange cast scale models in resin. This option features a pyramid-like shape, and a removable orb on one side.

“If I could create a landscape and invite people to exchange that energy with me, if it was an experience where we could truly be on the same playing field, then I could see the vision and I could see the light.”

— Solange Knowles

Spheres can be seen throughout different iterations of Solange's practice, from physical forms such as a glass decanter, to large-scale centerpieces such as this, which would bisect her public piece.

“I find myself pretty deep in the interwebs which opens new portals that I wasn't even expecting, which is what I love about Chrome because it keeps the speed I need to operate on. Egypt is such a core foundation in my origin story. Very few civilizations understand material, architecture, and symmetry as rooted in spirit, the way Egyptians have throughout history. Knowing and understanding how they have historically used copper was affirming for the process.”

— Solange Knowles

These shapes have been explored throughout the sculpture-making process. Here, we see two angles of the form.