Dmitriy Grek "Looking Out"

Looking Out -  is a series of bas-relief portraits carved in stone, seen in profile or in three-quarters, never in full face. They seem to peek out of the depths of raw stone, from beyond the mysterious veil of unspoken words. 

In the series, Dmitriy Grek explores the material’s specificity: the unique properties of any given stone require equally unique methods to highlight them. By endowing the stones with anthropomorphic elements, the sculptor seems to bring them to life, to set up opportunities for dialogue, a hook for a viewer that makes communication possible. Dmitriy Grek never takes this act of mimesis to its very end however. By leaving the imagery unfinished, he opens up an endless resonating space for the initial form that produced the sculpture; the artist preserves each stone’s original properties, its texture, random chips and cracks that document the stone’s “life.”

By setting these properties free and laying them bare, the artist sets up a dialogue between a sculpture and its human viewer: “Each material sounds different, and we approach it in a different way. Humankind is raw material too, if spiritual in nature. We have our own perspective ‘from the inside,’ while sculptures look out at us from the block of raw material.”