Original artworks from Bert Gilbert’s symbolic universe – talismanic altar forms, sculptural guardians and sensory artefacts made for contact with unseen forces, crossing thresholds between body, reliquary and ritual space.
The Record Keepers also reference the Descent of Inanna and the myth of the Golden Fleece. Energetic, sensory doorways to the metaphysical background of the world, the invisible, the unsaid, the felt, they open onto a world of magic and mayhem, a portal to perception. Each skin is activated by the element of air.
Materials
Inherited hand‑dyed mink skins (salvaged off‑cuts from the fashion industry), acrylic, pigment powder, ink, gold, silver or copper leaf, branches, gold nails, activated by the element of air.
“Some artists have a curiosity to explore aspects of the occult with the idea that objects themselves have an inherent magical, talismanic power. Bert Gilbert, who has a ritualistic and metaphysical approach to materials, has created a series of sculptures using formerly discarded animal pelts that she has painted with intricate symbolic designs hung on tree branches.” — Shamanism (2021), curated by James Putnam, Mimmo Scognamiglio Arte Contemporanea