Dr Gindi, sculptor from Switzerland. Photo © Courtesy of the artist
1.Tell us what you do and your beginnings.
Thank you for having me today, it is my pleasure to speak to MuseumWeek Magazine. I was trained as medical doctor before dedicating myself to art. Creating art in general and sculptures in particular requires skills not that dissimilar from those working in the medical field: which is an ability to connect emotionally with the valetudinarian, as well as careful attention to the rhythm of life, whether it was by means of forming clay or palpating heartbeats.
The horror of destruction and death is paired with a concordant, enraptured elation. The sculptor and the physician find common ground by unearthing human yearnings that have largely gone unnoticed. We are here to succor, especially in situations which are miserable at first sight. My sculptures are about embracing the human aspect of suffering and the potential deliverance toward infinity.
2.What does your work aim to say?
Through my work I am presenting something of an imaginative mold for my particular way of pervasive ponderings – aroused by the crevasses of alluring desire, I tend to express myriad searches for identity and, above all, a bottomless adoration for timeless infinity.
It might not sound logical, but I am exploring both the visceral and the volitional of embodied experience – often through non-linear fragmentation – steering human beings’ tectonic casting as an alter ego for the making of our souls’ fluid essences.
With conviction, I want to trigger a dialogue between opposite yet complementary qualities that describe our journey out of the inferno – in an artistic practice that vanquishes the gulf between self and other. I am sending signals into infinity.
3.Where do you find inspiration for your art?
Inspiration comes from my reading the clay and the other base materials I am using. When working in my studio, different acts of wizardry always happen. An idea will engulf me, and my hands and fingers almost naturally lead the way to the sculpture I have in mind. But the real work is done all before, I read a lot to deepen my knowledge on all aspects of moving humanity towards infinity.
And I travel, diving into the orations of far-away places and people, and their understanding of infinity. I am then racking my brain and my soul, during the whole day and often at night – wrestling with the essential question that stirs human existence – that quest for infinity that marks the ultimate affirmation of life. My deliverance in infinity is hard-won, a matter of suffering and devotion. My inspirations stem from that eternal struggle.
4.Could you give us some insight into your creative process?
My creative process is rather organic, as I am permanently drawing from my mental memory. This makes the way I work distinctly circular. Somehow, sometimes, I endlessly reframe and reconsider my own perspectives. When I sculpt it feels like I am disinterring myself, my assumptions, my convictions, my identity. And I must say, the moment of completion is a very eerie one.
Interstellar Dilemma 
The Painter
5.What are your future projects?
Where shall I start! I have plans throughout this year and into the next, in conjunction with exhibitions. Presently, I am developing a new series of work that shall illuminate a chosen moment in time. I am portraying human beings who are bewildered and thus trying to make choices that will define the rest of their lives.
A recent piece entitled ‘The Fateful Choice’ is a pursuit to capture crippling daze just prior to cathartic pivot, as it occurs when the strain is on you, in premonition of a decision you have to take. Essentially, the piece portrays a young girl holding a knife behind her back. Some doppelgangers might become martyrs of the choices she has, perhaps, the moment will tell. Or she carries on, beaming with bliss.
We often have to make decisions when ambiguity is present – a state in which there are many ways, often irreconcilable, of taking a stand on a certain matter.
Interview by Fabio Pariante, journalist – Twitter
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Dr Gindi on social networks: Instagram – Website
Dr Gindi is one of Switzerland’s foremost sculptors. Her approach to sculpting, like Dr Gindi herself, is profoundly indelible but hard to tag. Her sculptures are the result of a lifelong interest in profile and purpose – they embody frozen moments of human transition. Conceptually, her artistic language is primarily preoccupied with the potential infinity of human existence. At the outset, her three-dimensional works often encapsulate the lugubrious vibes of lonely souls who drift between abyss and amnesia. But Dr Gindi offers perspectives: she creates characters who, even if they cannot move on, they finally do. They convert into infinity.
Dr Gindi’s creative process, which tends to mound vigorous and sometimes odd idiosyncrasies ever higher on top of one another, can be magnetizing. With exhilarating idiom, she is sculpting a perplexing quest to restore fall to faith, and death to dash. Her interest in infinity stems from her education as medical doctor – as physician she had to observe and cure decaying human matter and mind. But Dr Gindi was always valiant by the striking disfigurement appearing before her eyes. Now, as physician-turned sculptor, she is seeking to capture the grace of personhood in its contest of inalienable reality.
