Helen Escobedo
Summer Fields (2008)
Country Park
Helen Escobedo is an international artist whose career spans over fifty years. An early exponent of installation art, she brings the culture of Mexico and Western Europe together through sculpture that intervenes in everyday life. Themes prevalent in her work include waste and the environment, women's role in society, death, memory and the transformative action of light.
Escobedo's interest in the cylindrical form of baled hay, its monolithic presence in fields across Europe and traditional pastoral connections within British landscape art, has led to the development of a work made for YSP. Escobedo has placed twenty cylindrical sculptures in a square acre of land in the Country Park. Comprising an inner and outer mesh, the structures are painted in such a way that they appear to float in the landscape and disappear into it, depending on the weather conditions and quality of light, creating a defined but indeterminable space.
A publication about Helen's work, Helen Escobedo: Footsteps in the Sand, by Graciela Schmilchuk, is available to buy in the YSP Shop.
Further information:
YSP Essential Sculpture Guide entry for Helen Escobedo
Links:
Helen Escobedo official website
Interview with Helen Escobedo by Nancy Walkup, Project Coordinator, University of North Texas