Garden sculpture, contemporary. Nordic Sphinx, The Rhubarb Sphinx
By Dana Nicholson
Located in New York, NY
Our Sphinx is Persephone, and she started as an old kingdom Egyptian relic. I then turned her musculature into mechanical appendages like she was an icon or idol off the set of the 1927 film, “Metropolis”. She was going to be an AI sphinx but I still wanted to incorporate Rhubarb within her adornment as she is a Nordic or Maritime sphinx. Big leafed rhubarb didn’t resonate with the mechanized look I had just executed beautifully. At the very least she is a North American sphinx with feather and wheat motifs. I included for symbolism and beauty (of course), ancient Egyptian and Greek floral references befitting a worldly creature. I took liberties and referenced eighteenth and nineteinth "Orientalism". The Sphinx is a mythological creature and not anything that moved across terrains anywhere that most of us have been. The AI sphinx was too fascist and severe for most gardens. I liked it deeply and may revisit that avenue once this sphinx’s’ plaster dust has settled. I love the Baroque, so I decided to go Baroque by giving the lions coat some seriously carved fur and curly cues. She looked like any one of the seventeenth century Louis’ characters crossed with a French poodle. That was a bad notion. I then created a sphinx that I like, a sphinx from my soul but seriously influenced by other artists. In the end she is uniquely elegant and powerfully poised, with distinct features. Compared to most sphinx throughout history her breasts are too high on her chest but seductive none the less (she is a contemporary sphinx). Her head is elongated, much like the busts of the Armana period in Egypt, but that’s just her hair and headdress, not her skull. Her rump and back are sensual. The Rhubarb Sphinx, embodies a history of sphinxes created by Europeans after the Napoleonic invasion and the extensive survey of Egypt which ignited a design frenzy of all things ancient Egypt. She is an esoteric garden folly...
2010s American Egyptian Dana Nicholson Building and Garden Elements
Cast Stone
