Julian Voss-Andreae
By Jimmy Steinfeldt
Artist Reception, Hohmann Gallery, Palm Desert, CA (The Hollywood Times) 4-5-25
Jimmy Steinfeldt: The title of your exhibit is “Ontological Relief and the Illusion of Matter” Tell us about one of my favorite sculptures titled “Tanzerin mit Blauem Haar (Dancer).”
Julian Voss-Andreae: That is a succession of an older piece. Similar to the art of Degas. I describe the human body as a bunch of triangles. Depending on where they are in the body, I make them smaller or bigger. The whole thing was designed on computer and then 3-D printed in sections and then cast in bronze and welded together. Then I take pieces of glass and use the outline from each triangle and then slump the glass overnight in a kiln giving it the curvature. Then I cut it out and glued it to the slot. Each glass piece takes a lot of work.
JS: You have had exhibits in my hometown of Minneapolis and in San Diego where I went to college.
JVA: In San Diego I was approached by an art consultant. He had a client who had a bio-science complex they had just built. They knew my background and interest in science. The sculpture is very tall. Ten feet tall cedar figure about 6000 pounds. It’s a man who’s meditating and he is looking at a tree which is a Torrey Pine which only grows in that area. There’s also a golden sphere sixteen inches in diameter. Inside his head that exact same sphere is missing creating a cavity in his head. This denotes a receptor. Like in biochemistry. Where there is a molecule that looks like a key and a molecule that looks like a lock, and they create a bio-chemical reaction. It’s the longing for that golden sphere that makes you complete.
The one in Minnesota was commissioned by the university for the physics and nanotech building they had just built. I made a man and a woman. This is a common form in physics. Like the Ying and Yang. Positron and electron. In this sculpture the man is in an uncomfortable position on his knees guarding the institution as a male while she is very at ease, feminine and mellow and looking in from the outside. They are like lovers who never see each other, and they are exactly on the same axis. It also deals with the quantum wave property of matter. We think of matter as solid but if you zoom in close enough everything is a wave.
JS: Meditation is part of many of your sculptures.
JVA: Meditation is a practice where we remind ourselves that we are more than just a body. When we calm ourselves down from chatter of the mind, we can discover something that is fundamental. Materialist reductionism suggests that the body is the fundamental thing. In truth there is a much deeper conscious based spiritual foundation to the world. Meditation is one of the ways you can experience that.
JS: You are from Hamburg. How has your hometown influenced you and your art?
JVA: The river in Hamburg is very important somehow. Mostly I see a very German aspect to my art. A combination of art and science. Intuition and intellect. The scientists in Germany tend to be much more visual. This has been going on for a long time. Einstein for instance could visualize something in his mind. This is unlike the Anglo-Saxonian tradition of doing science. I feel a connection to the visual tradition found in German art and science.
The exhibit runs through May 16. To learn more check out https://news.hohmann.art/voss-andreae-exhibition-2025
