Saudade (2012/2018)

Elvire Soyez

Saudade is a wall-based installation comprising 29 sculptures made from pipe cleaners. The coloured lines delineate everyday objects, bones and skull-like forms, occupying a space between drawing and sculpture. Their cast shadows extend the work beyond the wall, shifting with the light and the viewer’s position.

Combining playful imagery with references to mortality and transience, the work brings together humour and melancholy. Art critic Peter Cornell has characterised Soyez’s practice in terms of an “exhilarated melancholy”, in which dark humour takes on a liberating quality (Expressen, 14 December 2012).

Saudade was first exhibited in Elvire Soyez’s solo exhibition Les ancêtres, matière morte at Angelika Knäpper Gallery, Stockholm, in 2012. The work was subsequently acquired by Public Art Agency Sweden (Statens konstråd) and permanently installed at the Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2018.

Work details

Elvire Soyez

Saudade, 2012

Pipe cleaners, 29 sculptures

Dimensions variable

Installed 2018, Embassy of Sweden, Bangkok, Thailand

Collection of Public Art Agency Sweden (Statens konstråd)

© Elvire Soyez. Courtesy of the artist.