Helle Rask Crawford

Leapfrog by Helle Crawford, Contemporary frog bronze animal sculpture

2024

Helle Rask Crawford is an experienced sculptor based in Denmark whose works have been exhibited nationally, as well as in Scotland, England, Australia, and the Channel Islands. She describes her pieces as circling around both philosophical and existential themes. In addition, Crawford employs an understanding of neuroaesthetics with the aim of communicating on an emotional level. Her bold compositions are realized through bronze and stone. Even though Helle Rask Crawford often refers to classic myths in her sculptures, she is not a classical sculptor in the neoclassical sense. Rather, Helle Crawford could be defined as an anti-classical artist. Her sculptures are expressive, dynamic, sensual and humorous. They are full of movement, imagination and fabulating stories. Strong potent bulls, wonderfully vibrant horses, powerful ravens and lovesick swans characterize Helle Crawford as a sculptor. The expressive quality of her sculptures, that lets you sense the work of hands and fingers, the explosive, dynamic compositions, the sensuality and the imaginative content showcase Helle Crawford as a tradition conscious, yet thoroughly original artist. The work we have here is equally at home undercover and outside. What emerges from the beautiful and manifest figurations is a form of personal responsibility. A dynamic act of balance in a concrete sculptural expression . The artist does not revere what is in vogue at the modern art scene. Her contract with the future is thus unpredictable, but meeting the works of the artist is very rewarding, because the ultimate freedom and pleasure in the work is so markedly prioritized. Inside and outside the domaine of the time. Controlled movement is the guiding force in the handling of clay, plaster and bronze. Superficiality is only skin-deep: A sensuous joy can be sensed flowing from the artist’s fingers in the sculpting of any surface.