(Left) Wind Waves

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Who made this sculpture?

Yvonne Domenge, the artist who created ‘Wind Waves’, is a native of Mexico City. Born in 1946, Domenge was raised in a sophisticated family environment where listening to live classical music was an every day occurrence. Her father, in addition to being a lawyer, played several musical instruments for pleasure.

Starting when she was six years old, Domenge studied with her aunt Elne Domenge (Kitzia Hoffman), a sculptor and a stainedglass artist. She studied painting with Benjamin Molina, and enrolled at the Escuela de Artesanas No.5 del INBA (INBA's School of Handcrafts No. 5). She also studied in Montreal, Canada,
Washington D.C., USA, and at Alberto Prez Soria's sculpture workshop where she learned how to manage small and large scale pieces. As she developed her artistic style, Domenge began to assimilate the characteristic colours of popular expression into her work, transcribing them to her sculptures.

Over the last 35 years, Domenge has been part of more than 165 collective exhibitions in several cities across Mexico, the United States, Canada, China, and Europe including exhibits at the Louvre Museum, Paris, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and E Chopo University Museum, Mexico City. Domenge was selected for the 2nd Beijing International Art Biennale (2005), the Monterrey Biennial FEMSA (2001), and the Tercera Bienal Internacional del Juguete Arte, Museo José Luis Cuevas, Mexico City.

In addition to being recognized for her artistic and creative work,Domenge has also mentored young sculptors and participated in projects to address social issues such as housing programs in the State of Chiapas (Programa Emergente de Vivienda para Chiapas Nuevo Milenio). She has also worked with the inhabitants of the Buenos Aires neighborhood, a low-income housing area in Mexico City, involving them in the creation of sculptural artworks.


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What ideas are being explored in this sculpture?

In her work, Domenge often references nature, architecture, and a fascination with form and geometry. Playing with these notes of reference while trying out ideas in her mind becomes a source of energy for her creativity. With ‘Wind Waves’, an intense red circular form, Domenge creates an elegant decorative form full of curves and recreates, in three dimensions, the shapes that only exist inside movement. The circular form is rhythmic and undulating, creating the sense of a waving motion within a contained form.

This sculpture was selected by the Director of the Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City, to represent Mexico. It was created specifically for the Vancouver Biennale and for a specific site, a beach promontory in Steveston, BC, Canada. Domenge, when previewing the installation site, wanted to make sure it would allow for an intimate connection with visitors. She hopes that families will touch it, kids will climb on it, and couples will crawl inside of it and embrace.

How was this sculpture made?

Although crafted from bronze, ‘Wind Waves’ is painted. Created in Domenge’s studio in Mexico, the 10-ton, 4.5 metre tall sculpture was loaded onto a container when finished, trucked to the coast, and brought to Vancouver by boat. Her work is primarily spherical and is finished with washable paint to dissuade graffiti artists who might get a little too close to her work.

How does this work connect with this artist’s other works?

Domenge’s works range from small scale pieces through to monumental urban sculpture. She uses a variety of materials: wood, stone, cement, clay, onyx, marble, stainless and carbon steel, silver, ice, resin, wax, soap, and porcelain. Influenced in part by the folk art of her country, she uses bright colors and techniques that are native to Mexico, such as staining her wood with cochineal – a deep red dye obtained from cochineal insects – or finishing with gold and silver leaf. The themes that recur in her work are drawn from the natural world and the universe that surrounds her, but are always filtered through her own standpoint as a woman, an artist, a Mexican. This, together with the strong simplicity of her abstract forms, characterizes her work.

Domenge's recent works are abstract geometric forms which visually express ideas of an infinite universe. Humanity frequently embodies the quality of the infinite in their Gods. Yvonne's work draws upon this, creating pieces that have a spiritual quality while still being intellectual in their exact geometry. The forms are also seemingly without imperfection in surface texture and composition. Upon closer inspection, however, the pieces are obviously made by human hands, the surfaces worked over a long period of time. Compositionally, the spheres appear to have no beginning and no end, and yet they are not as simple as this. Intricate designs and mathematical puzzles hold the viewer's attention. Reflection on the spherical form is as old as time itself. In modern times the form can represent a multitude of ideas associated with everything from business to science to religion.