Percocet Pendant

Best known for the jewelry and figurative sculptures based on a range of pharmaceutical drugs that garnered her widespread notoriety in the late 1990s, prolific artist Colleen Wolstenholme has also created abstract drawings and other works over the years that continue to stimulate dialogue and attract attention.   

Born in 1963 in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Wolstenholme became interested in visual arts while studying fashion design at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. After earning her bachelor’s degree in fine arts in 1986, she continued her studies and received her master’s degree from the State University of New York at New Paltz in 1992, where she specialized in metal and jewelry arts.

Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, Wolstenholme worked with a range of mediums such as jewelry, sculpture, digital collage, painting and embroidery to create art that served as social criticism. Beginning in the mid-1990s, she made oversized plaster-cast sculptures and silver or gold jewelry that took the form of antidepressant pills and capsules in order to address several issues, including the fact that drugs are prescribed at disproportionate rates to women versus men, that the healthcare industry is overly reliant on prescribing drugs, and that anyone in treatment and on a course of medication is generally made to feel less healthy than those who aren’t. Wolstenholme’s provocative work made headlines in the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times and Psychology Today.

Wolstenholme’s art has also seen her unpacking her interest in the human brain. This is demonstrated in such abstract sculptures as Deviant Grid, the “Matrix Index” series and Spatial Anomaly in which she depicts the brain’s neurons. In her “Hyperobjects” series, Wolstenholme also focuses on systems that “humans have little power over but control and constrain us.” These include figurative drawings and abstract drawings of wind patterns, titled with geographical coordinates.

Wolstenholme’s art is part of the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. 

On 1stDibs, find a range of Colleen Wolstenholme sculptures, drawings and watercolor paintings.

Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

Find a collection of Contemporary prints, photography, paintings, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.

Figurative sculptures mix reality and imagination, with the most common muse being the human body. Animals are also inspirations for these sculptures, along with forms found in nature.

While figurative sculpture dates back over 35,000 years, the term came into popularity in the 20th century to distinguish it from abstract art. It was aligned with the Expressionist movement in that many of its artists portrayed reality but in a nonnaturalistic and emotional way. In the 1940s, Alberto Giacometti — a Swiss-born artist who was interested in African art, Cubism and Surrealism — created now-iconic representational sculptures of the human figure, and after World War II, figurative sculpture as a movement continued to flourish in Europe.

Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon were some of the leading figurative artists during this period. Artists like Jeff Koons and Maurizio Cattelan propelled the evolution of figurative sculpture into the 21st century.

Figurative sculptures can be whimsical, uncanny and beautiful. Their materials range from stone and wood to metal and delicate ceramics. Even in smaller sizes, the sculptures make bold statements. A bronze sculpture by Salvador Dalí enhances a room; a statuesque bull by Jacques Owczarek depicts strength with its broad chest while its thin legs speak of fragility. Figurative sculptures allow viewers to see what is possible when life is reimagined.

Browse 1stDibs for an extensive collection of figurative sculptures and find the next addition to your collection.