Fertility

Sandra Camargo was born in Colombia and is a self-taught stone sculptor. She works with traditional hand-carving tools, rejecting mass-production and consumerism. The dialect of her work is of shape and form and light; how the light travels through stone or impacts the surface, and how the negative space modifies or becomes a part of the work. Sandra was selected to participate in the professional development programme run by New Platform Art in 2021, she won the CAS Emerging Sculptors Development Award in 2023. A theme of my work is to find the story contained in each stone and the history of that used for “COMFORT” is particularly interesting. Portland limestone, reconned to be more than 140 million years old, used in the building of King’s College Hospital in 1909 with the number A28 on it, an original mason’s mark. During a refurbishment, the stone was discarded but rescued and for 20 years it was kept on an artist’s patio in London until in 2023, it was given to me. I hand-carved it for 4 months to achieve its final incarnation – a tribute to life and a celebration of those whose lives started or ended at the hospital, as well as those who made the hospital their life's work. The form was inspired by the folds of a discarded hospital blanket, as though in a laundry basket. The sculpture is named Comfort, because a blanket is the most basic of human comforts, present through the ages at birth, through life, and at the end. "COMFORT" was a runner up for The British Antique Dealers Association Art Prize (BADA Art Prize 2024).

Other work by this artist ...