Untitled sculpture series

Huo Rf’s Untitled sculpture series, made of mostly clay, are notably shaped like hearts. Strewn around the gallery, the iconic form is captured in various states: resting atop a bed, riddled with nails, but always frozen and grotesque. Those hearts represent the artist’s empathetic response to the terrifying events mostly led by state-led actions, exclusion, and always regarding the lives of minorities. The heart—an image reduced to a sentimental symbol in the positivist era in which it glamorizes the mind—appears in Huo Rf’s practice as a powerful tool to channel his sensitivity towards the pain of others. Empathy, a moving force in the artist’s production, provides him with a discussion field of following those powerful feelings and thoughts in lieu of remaining in a passive stage, as well as enabling him to share them with the audience, which might empower those who feel similarly.

Zehra Begüm Kışla