Page 51 - Studio International - July 1966

rates what looks like a cut-out eye, while the three upright
forms, or bodies, seem locked in intimate, aggressive
exchanges. Square group, to which one could not tag a
figurative or literary description, also has this eye-like
centrality, but here the virility and aggression is con-
veyed in the solid stance and the whip-lash linear mark-
ings. Both the surrealistic and aggressive qualities are
present in Head, made up of strident verticals, in which
an eye-hole seems to have been gouged out. Enclosed
figure, using simple flat pieces, again makes its disturbing
effect by the placing of a suggested human form between
two monumental verticals, with the effect of squeez-
ing the life out of it (perhaps inspired by the Samson
story). The Golem imagery in much of Nele's work is
made explicit in Square against squares, which has five
upright cubist forms, seemingly bent in battle, looking
like man-made monsters running loose.
This kind of literary description of Nele's work may well
give the wrong impression of a kind of romantic narrative
I consider a fetish, a fetish for something, a fetish against as her aim. No doubt others will unearth different psycho-
something.' logical pressures or sublimations to convey the complex
pictorial elements in her sculpture. It is, however, im-
White figure, one of the bronzes in her new exhibition at the portant to emphasize the technical command in her
HAMILTON GALLERY, has precisely this totemistic, fetish- working methods and the authoritative displacement of
like quality; a swathed or bandaged figure, vaguely form and mass. Hers is a building-up method, not
African in feeling, but also with a hint of the Crucifixion, sculpture in the traditional meaning. This is allied with
it is like an image from an early German horror film, a constructivism and engineering. In another sense it is like
Frankenstein waiting to be uncovered. Framed torso is more painting or drawing, in the creation of images which are
pictorially complex, cellular in its formation, with hardly basically calligraphic.
anything recognizably figurative. Yet each of the little A miniaturist among modern sculptors, Nele has a
boxes holds small, immensely vital forms which cut and quality and personality all her own, mysterious yet some-
thrust and dominate the space they occupy with a how explicit, humanistic in its concern for the terrors and
frightening power. Bodies and wall is more surrealistic nightmares of existence, yet suggestive of a heroic formal-
and ironic. The wall, made up of oblong pieces, incorpo- ism as shield and defence.
q

Above Right
Bodies and wall 1965 Square group 1965
Bronze Bronze