DR. GINDI INTERVIEW — Interlocutor

Educated as a medical doctor, the German-Egyptian sculptor Dr. Gindi spent her entire life wandering around different cultures and alongside emotional abysses. She attempts to understand why certain phenomena appear as they are and why she interacts with them in the way she does.

“Over the years, my experience in both science and life has taught me that our existence and options are infinite — if we allow them to be. Submitting to fate and having a sense of resignation can often be the norm, but if we can metamorphosize these attitudes, we shall be able to model the infinity of our existence.”

Her classical training as a sculptor enables Dr. Gindi to approach humanness more profoundly. Through working with models and meticulously exploring the human morphology, inner dialogues are evoked and reflected in her works. Her sculptures are made from different materials. The most recent ones are generated of clay and later transformed into bronze.

Interview by Tyler Nesler

You were trained as a medical doctor. What is your area of specialty in medicine?

I was originally educated as medical doctor and had working experience as General Practitioner as well as psychiatrist for young adults. I wanted to experience the succoring of both body and mind — an overarching theme recurring in my later sculptural practice. My expertise was rather broad as I aspired to cure people in their whole, finding the underlying causes of disease. I managed high blood pressure and cholesterol as well as mental illnesses, helping my patients get through life’s physical and psychical challenges.

I was hypnotized and at the same time horrified by the slow decay of the human body and mind when earth is calling. And I was asking myself how this irrevocable decay can be brought to a halt, forever. Are there choices in our mortal coil or is it all about fate we have to accept? It became clear to me that there is an indeterminate range of possibilities. The imperiled future is so infinite as to give us neither orientation nor guarantees — we could go in any direction. It was a frenzy of felt exigency after practicing medicine that set me on the path to fulfill my real destiny — to become a sculptor.

Throughout your medical training, were you always also interested in or practicing sculpture, or did your artistic endeavors develop afterwards?

My relationship to art was always natural, but it didn’t develop in a linear fashion. I worked as physician for a number of years, but my reputation as a doctor was soon outshined by my vocation as artist. I created my first sculptural works which were in a sense thrown up, coming suddenly into salience: whereas before, there had been no sign of them. For sure, my medical expertise came into play in the narratives of my first three-dimensional creations. Through sculpture, my mission has been to capture the incorporeal aspects of human existence, and how they evince in our daily chagrins. To express invisible tangibility through shape and matter is to provoke an inner altercation, and to inherently bring the infinite into focus.

I was captivated by the infinite since being a freshwoman at medical school, in its many varied semblances; by the endlessness of time and space; by the thought that between any two points in space, however close, there is always another. And I have been puzzled by the idea of the potentially never-ending and the ostensibly all-knowing. With my sculptures, I want to model the infinity of our existence. I want to show the choices we have in life. And I want to encourage people to achieve this shimmying state of infinity, of lightness. Even if our body and mind matures, if we mellow, if we become heavier — we are lighter. We are infinite. It all depends on us.

In what fundamental ways do you believe your medical training has influenced your approach to depicting human morphology in sculpture?

The study and practice of medicine has had an important influence on my work as artist; it has considerably enlarged the sphere of my observation, has enriched me with knowledge the true value of which for me as a sculptor can only be understood by the telling human morphology and its fallibility. I believe that my sculptures fuse health-giving and zest-giving as I attempt to illuminate the enigmatic complexities of our bodies and our minds. Take for example “The Chalice of Life”, an early work that illustrates a cryptic carcass. In our transience we are reduced on matter. Substance is dissolving and what remains is energy. Our raison d'être could be to channel that energy to create infinite opportunities.

RS-Dr.-Gindi-Chalice-of-life-2017-(8).jpg — “The Chalice of Life”

What attracted you to the art form of sculpture in particular, as a means towards gaining a more holistic understanding of human existence and experience?

I am a 3D person, as medical doctor as well as sculptor. I admire painters and I eulogize great paintings but life from my perspective is always three-dimensional — or more — we can consider time as an additional dimension. And we might detect further phenomena that a world with spatial dimensions predicts. Sculpting within the space of numerous dimensions is a radical act for me as I try to embody the most primal state I can. Because medicine has inspired me as an artist, my sculptural art has naturally been centred around infinity as the fundamental factor of human existence. But too much autopsy can actually get in the way of how I would evidently perceive my means through the structure of a long and complex creative process. I need to feel how to bend the clay, how to pull back on a forming move and reinforce another, and bring certain furrows to the forefront. With faintest twist, with suspired irregularity, with lust for shape and texture, I give my sculptures their trippy appearances.

What do you look for when initially selecting a model to use as a subject for a sculpture? What sort of distinctions are you seeking in terms of body types or faces?

My sculptures might be seen as organically strange as they send the viewer in circles. There is no consistent aspect of convergence, no fixed point magnetically springing to the eyes of the observer. I am trying to create images that got pivotal value but remain meandrous in their meaning as they are bereft of compelled individualization. Real models with salient features have often been the starting point of my search for form but my sculptures do not necessarily portrait the models’ individual traits — they are rather points of departure into terra incognita. In the instance that abstract forms want to come up, I let them. I want to comment on that experience with a piece called “Interstellar Dilemma” where I portrayed fragments of a model: A foot and a hand are moving together, apart. Seemingly rooted in the here and now, we seem to strive for distant elevation. Is there such existence as matter without energy, and Earth without the Divine? At the most evident level, the answer is plain. After all, what can we conceivably conclude about humankind’s perpetual search for selfhood, a search always dedicated to the desire to overcome death? I do not want to produce art on asteroids but sometimes my art drifts into outer space. Be it what it would: I am looking for the organic in our being, and ultimately for the infinity in our existence.

You've worked with different materials throughout your career, and now your most recent ones “are generated of clay and later transformed into bronze.” What attracts you to working with these particular mediums? What are some advantages and disadvantages of this process?

Bronze is a noble material in its own right, I chose it for its perdurability and its vibrational traits, as well as its ability to reveal the placed ardour of skin. As a medical doctor, I studied the texture of the human skin as I view it as an expressive surface of our inner world. The skin is the largest organ of the body and provides separation and protection, contact and touch, representation and expression, it is shown on my bronze sculptures all over, the human pulse is trapped inside that bear shell. Yes, my sculptures got a skin! It contains the convoluted reality of our being, the epidermic corporealities of our existence. You can touch and feel the surface of my sculptures’ metal skin as there are many layers of textures depicting waves of energy and life. The human skin and my sculptures’ skin shall affect boundless intimacy with others, shall express zeal detectable by others. And no, there are no disadvantages with bronze.

There is a quote on your website: “Torn between purpose and avolition.” Do you view this as a core dichotomy with your own personal artistic practice? How do you find ways to minimize lack of motivation and maximize productivity?

The characters in my sculptures are indeed torn between purpose and avolition, that’s a characteristic that is evident throughout my whole work — but it doesn’t necessarily describe my own creative practice, which is rather candid: As soon as I form the clay, I have mediated it, I depict and reflect on the deeply ingrained paradigm of infinity, over and over again. Thus, my creative process is a combination of form and reason. I don’t try to maximize productivity, my sculptures rather just emerge.

Coming back to the dichotomy of purpose and avolition inherent in my work. Many of my characters seem to ask: Where am I, what is my role in life? Where shall I go? Is there a sublime purpose I can attain? Or shall I submit to avolition and just resign? My sculptures catch moments of decisions — showing the depicted humanoid either shifting from resignation to courage, or the other way round. We don’t know where our life will lead us. Take for example “Beaufort 7”, a sculpture that visualizes a character sensing the mist of the sea on his face. The current may bear him far. Setting sail, he entrusts his soul to the wind. We humans are confronted with the most irreducible fact: the alienation of being, as we are thrown into the anonymized and callous world. Alone. Bewildered. But we can choose our paths, and follow it, across the endless ocean of the universe.

You are currently participating in an online exhibition at The Florence Academy of Art. Are there any other upcoming exhibits or new works that you would like people to know about?

I am currently creating sculptures that shall emblaze fleeting moments in humans’ life. I am planning to show them in exhibitions from autumn this year, in addition to the current online exhibition. To start with, my work “The Fateful Choice” will be exhibited at the European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona, from October 2021 to January 2022.

Life opens up all possibilities but once we are thrown into one or the other direction our future unfolds. When you spectate the fleeting moments inherent in my sculptures you might witness the pungent quarrel between avolition and purpose, and between time and infinity. Humans have vast capacities and talents, and by cultivating them we become closer to the fulfillment of our destiny. We can even create our own reality: a whole new cosmos that evolves its own stars. A reality that behaves dynamically as seen in “The Fateful Choice”: A young girl holds a knife behind her back. We don’t know what she is going to do with it. It might depend on you, the spectator, as the narrative of this sculpture involves interactive synchronicity or even essentially enhanced reality. “The Fateful Choice” carries the verdict of the observer.