David Altmejd on his Tour-de-Force Surrealist Serpent

Although an intricate sprawling feat of each Maximalism and engineering, David Altmejd got down to create his newest tour-de-force sculpture The Serpent (2025) with little planning—opting as an alternative to determine his work’s which means and kind as he labored, letting his supplies information the best way. Lots of the finest artists work this manner: In any case, if you happen to already knew what a piece was going to be, or may say in a couple of sentences what it means, why undergo the effort of creating it in any respect? Within the ultimate kind, which is on view at White Dice in New York via April 19, Altmejd’s means of play and exploration is abundantly evident. And although the Los Angeles–based mostly Canadian artist works intuitively, he displays thoughtfully all of the whereas, studying from and dialoguing along with his artistic course of—as captured within the interview under.

The method of creating is all the time on the coronary heart of my sculptures. That’s why I depart all of the seams and traces of my hand untouched: I’m fascinated by how an object can carry the reminiscence of its personal making.

For the previous few years, the snake has been slowly rising in my work, shyly and subtly. I work very intuitively, so once I say issues like “the snake emerged in my work,” I actually consider that’s the way it works. At first, I wasn’t able to deal with such a loaded image. However lately, possibly due to the place I used to be in my life, I turned able to face it.

I made a decision to make a snake from a collection of heads. I had no concept what it was going to appear to be, the scale that it was going to be. However I’ve been engaged on heads so long as I’ve been making sculptures. The method felt like making a necklace out of beads, placing pearls on a string one after the opposite.

As a result of I knew The Serpent was going to be unpredictable and chaotic, I made a decision first to make a sculpture referred to as Snake Charmer (2025)as a type of counterbalance. Snake Charmer was current within the studio, giving out calming vibes because the chaos was rising. The sculpture reveals the bust of a determine enjoying the flute multiplied 36 occasions, mixed right into a type of grid.

Then I began engaged on The Serpent. At first, I imagined that every one the heads making up the serpent could be equivalent. However in a short time, I discovered that the restrictions of the method [cast epoxy clay] meant that it will be higher to let every head have its character. So I made a decision to push the work in that route, making all of the heads completely different. They’re all casts of my head, however generally, I modified the nostril or made the top extra female. Quickly, it was as if the heads all symbolized completely different moments in a life. Stepping again, I may even see clear chapters: There’s an increase, there’s a fall, there’s a dying, there’s decay, there’s a metamorphosis. However as I mentioned, I work very intuitively. So these are reflections that I’ve whereas I’m working, not concepts I’m attempting for example.

Individuals have been asking me if The Serpent a self-portrait. I suppose so, in sure methods. However I additionally marvel what defines a self-portrait: Does it need to be a aware illustration of the self? As a result of this wasn’t. Nearly each sculpture I make begins with a forged of my very own head, only for sensible causes.

I’m turning into increasingly conscious that no matter form a sculpture takes outcomes from a want that’s within the materials: The fabric all the time desires to be formed a sure method. I believe quite a bit in regards to the unconscious as outlined by Carl Jung, and assume that possibly, there’s some an invisible power within the materials’s unconscious that’s simply ready for me to assist it manifest.

Many individuals have described my work as Surrealist. Up to now, I didn’t actually perceive this as a result of in my thoughts, I understood Surrealism as extra of a method. And positive, my work has bizarre stuff: animals, unpredictable objects. However I believed this was a superficial comparability, till I spotted I’m doing precisely what the Surrealists have been doing: letting the unconscious manifest.

That’s the enjoyable of creating the work: not realizing the place it’s going to go, believing within the course of, letting the fabric determine the form. I really like the unpredictability. I’m very snug with chaos. And I think chaos likes me too.

The present actually started with the sculptures on view upstairs, of musicians enjoying swans as devices. After making them, I believed: Oh, they may very well be enjoying music for dancers. So I made dancers, and I began to assume that, as a sculptor, actually I’m simply enjoying music and making the fabric dance. I don’t wish to impose a choreography on it. I wish to let it discover my rhythm.

Within the nook of The Serpent’s plinth, a rabbit is peeking out of a gap. I’ve been working with rabbits for a couple of years. I began doing so as a result of I’m all the time drawing on my sculptures, however with a human bust, cheeks and foreheads don’t depart room for giant drawings. So I believed: If I made huge rabbit ears, I may use them as a drawing floor.

Afterward, I spotted that my reference to the rabbit is way deeper, courting again to my childhood. Quickly, I turned actually within the rabbit as trickster—not essentially as in a personality that performs methods, however as a type of spirit that may each be on the planet, and in addition go underground via a gap, navigating darkish channels underground. In Alice in Wonderland, it’s the White Rabbit who leads Alice into her personal unconscious, the place she meets the Queen and all these characters. For me as an artist, that’s crucial device I’ve: the flexibility to dig beneath the floor and to entry the darker area of the unconscious—after which come again above floor.

—As advised to Emily Watlington