Marja Verhage

In my artwork there are many shapes that show an abstraction of Motion. I find it fascinating to reflect motion into something as immobile as stone. Motion can stand for many things: think of water, time, development, growth, rise and fall. By abstraction, with many dynamic aspects, I create often opposing movements. That duality I often apply into the material: the skin of the sculpture can be smooth and/or rough.
The many aspects around sculpting, including the hardness of the various types of stone and how to get a three-dimensional composition in such a piece of primordial matter, intrigues me. The main thing here is my fascination for and thinking in Shapes and Volumes. By chopping (sculpting) I create Shapes by which the stone becomes a Sculpture, Something. I recreate the stone into something new, that becomes shape in your hands, allowing the beauty and expressiveness and other special characteristics of the stone to become visible.
I prefer to work in the somewhat harder stones such as: Diabas, Marble, Bluestone, and Travertin. Sometimes I work also in the softer kinds of stone, and especially working in Alabaster gives (by its transparency) special effects.