Valérie Blass is known for her inventive manipulation of moldable materials, which she often paints or textures to create hybrid forms that blur the boundaries between the figurative and the abstract. Her practice spans sculpture and video, drawing from a diverse range of references including fiction, surrealism, minimalism, and everyday objects. Blass’s work explores key themes such as posture and movement, affect and representation, abstraction, the primal gaze, and the relationship between form and its surface or “dressing.” Her sculptures frequently incorporate tension, torsion, and irregular bodily forms, giving the impression of anthropomorphic presence without settling into clear representation. These tensions invite the viewer to consider the instability of perception and the ambiguity of form. Blass employs a wide variety of sculptural techniques—casting, carving, molding, bricolage—to assemble fragmented and surprising compositions out of both found and fabricated materials. Her process is rooted in improvisation, allowing accidents and contingencies to shape the final outcome. She purposefully dismantles and reconstructs forms, defying the notion of a fixed or complete object. In her own words, she seeks to create a space where form and representation remain in flux, embodying a dynamic relationship between the material body and abstract experience. ...
