[Ebram Victoria] My name is Ebram Victoria. My focus is nature therapy; with a background in landscape architecture, every site that I make as a designer, I have stone in it. When I come to museums, I'm seeking the old: the super past. Just reaching back much further than I could ever even imagine. I like to come to this courtyard area where there's access to the outdoors, where you can see the sunlight. And as I was sitting on a bench, looking at all the ancient mosaics surrounding the entire courtyard, to my surprise, I saw these Egyptian sculptures. And in fact, these were much older.
What's significant about these pieces is their scale the juxtaposition between them to the scale of the ancient mosaic just behind it, and they're looking at each other and one says, stand back and look at me - being the ancient mosaics - and these say, ‘step forward, look into me, and wrap your body around all sides of the case’ because there are so many details. And I realized as I was reading the text, that the materials were all natural materials. These three pieces together feature different types of stone and different types of materials and different types of techniques. And even the way they're displayed: the mother and the child being raised in prominence. What was really special that I found out about that material, is that when it's made, it's of a very dull and generic color of clay. However, when you fire it, it turns into this amazing copper-esque, this green coloring, which really speaks to the afterlife, speaks to that transformation. And then on the end, rulership.
Stone is this capsule of memory. The process of a stone becoming a stone is an accumulation of sand and grit and dirt and the elements and water locking in layers on top of each other with time. Every single stone takes millions of years to come into existence. When I see these Egyptian pieces, they embody what nature reverence is all about. It's working with the materials. It's not trying to change them even though they're sculpting them, but they're sculpting with the nature, they're respecting the materiality, and incorporating it into their experience, and letting nature be the vehicle for their story.
Unidentified Artist (Egypt)
Date:
540-500 BC
Medium:
Stone
Size:
Height: 6″
Visual Description:
This stone figure of an ancient Egyptian figure appearing male measures six inches high. The lower half of the sculpture as well as the arms appear to have broken off and are now missing. The surviving sculpture is mounted on a cubed stone base. The figure wears a headdress that covers the top of his head and flows behind his ears and down his back, a style typical of Egyptian royalty. He has a slightly smiling expression. The figure is a muted brown color, with some lighter and darker areas giving it a weathered look. The base appears marbled in neutral tones of brown and golden yellow.