Christoph Ohler
Artists
Statement
With my work I am exploring the possibilities of building steel-sculptures using only basic hand tools and a welder. The results are often shapes that represent 2-manifold surfaces embedded in 3-dimensional Euclidean space. I develop my sculptures by using elements like symmetry, duplication and sometimes knotted-ness. I am also fascinated by the idea of the Möbius band and I therefore let most of my 2-manifolds be single-sided.
Artworks
MHC01
40 x 50 x 60 cm
Steel
2020
This piece is inspired by the artwork of Eva Hild whom I met at the 2018 Bridges conference. The idea was to build a similar looking sculpture out of steel which, however, would be single-sided. The sculpture represents a non-orientable 2-manifold with a single border and it is almost entirely negatively curved.
I built this shape by welding together many small discs of steel with 30 mm diameter and 5mm thickness. Starting from a central position, each disc is held in place and then welded to the existing structure, thus letting the sculpture grow gradually. The emerging rough curvature is then evened out by grinding. Adding new material and smoothing the curvature is done iteratively. The surface had rusted and is now brushed.