Acquavella Galleries is pleased to present Horizon, its first solo exhibition of works by Harumi Klossowska de Rola in New York. Featuring over twenty new and recent sculptures, Horizon continues the artist’s long-standing exploration of the natural world, seeking to capture both its forms and its untamed spirit. Taking wild flora and fauna as her subjects, Klossowska draws inspiration from nature’s immense beauty and ancient histories, inviting us to reconsider mankind’s relationship with the natural world. Though the works on view are all inspired by the trees and animals of the northern regions stretching from the Arctic to British Columbia, the exhibition’s title is universal, reflecting a broader connection with nature.
In her work, Klossowska draws upon a wide range of cultural traditions and artistic practices that have long revered animals and the natural world, from Japanese Shintoism to the traditions of First Nations peoples and ancient Egypt. She views wild animals and untamed trees as “untouched landscapes”—beings that operate in pure connection with nature and outside the register of humanity and domestication. Imbuing her subjects with the sovereignty and power accorded to them in ancient cultures, she renders each work with exquisite detail, powerful physicality, and a profound spiritual presence. Her sculptures evoke a world in which nature, rather than human civilization, is in control. As she explains, “I am very much inhabited by the idea, maybe the dream, of an untouched environment, of a nature without us, or very little of us, of a natural world that dictates us, not the other way around.”
Characterized by an exquisite attention to detail and surface, Klossowska’s handcrafted sculptures reflect her fascination with the passage of time and the histories embedded in her materials. Drawn to materials that carry their own memories, such as ancient woods and alabaster, which she frequently combines with bronze to create harmony and unity out of different elements and histories. To realize her sculptures, she works in close collaboration with master artisans at the Fonderie de Coubertin and Fonderie Patrick Laroche, bringing together traditional craftsmanship and her distinctive artistic vision.
In the monumental bronzes Ihtuup I-III (2025), Klossowska abstracts the forms of whales, capturing their epic proportions and quiet power. Ihtuup is the word for “whale” in certain dialects spoken by the Nuu-chah-nulth communities who live along the Pacific Northwest coast of Canada, where, for thousands of years, people have maintained a sacred, reciprocal relationship with the coastal waters and its animal inhabitants. In Ihtuup I-III, the whales point upward, as if reaching for the surface of the ocean, recalling sperm whales that rest vertically in pods while they sleep. A void of negative space in the whales’ bodies lends a sense of lightness that belie the heaviness of their bronze forms, allowing the sculptures to engage with the surrounding space.
