Carole A. Feuerman Casts Her Hyperreal Swimmers in Classical Narratives

Carole A. Feuerman’s hyperrealistic sculptures of graceful human subjects like swimmers, divers, and dancers, featured here, are undeniably lifelike. But they are also magical in their dreamy state. Her sculptures also capture something that isn’t real in the tangible sense, and that is the soul and emotion of a living person. Some call it “super-realism”, but in Feuerman’s words: “My sculptures combine both reality and illusion- I’m idealizing the human form, its not life as it really is.”

Feuerman is perhaps best known for her series of swimmers and bathers, a series she first began in the 1970s and continues to expand on today. Clad in 1920s style bathing suits, her swimmers are cast in the role of classical and mythological figures in her upcoming solo, “Hero and Leander” opening on May 6th at C24 Gallery in New York City.

Artist Carole A. Feuerman, with her sculpture “DurgaMa”.

The exhibit takes its name from her monumental sized bronze pieces, “Monumental Dancer” and “Beyond the Golden Mean”, representing the Greek mythological story of Hero and Leander. Other new works include “Leda and the Swan”, portrayed reclining on a giant, inflatable swan, and “DurgaMa”, the Hindu goddess who blossoms from an impressive lotus flower, and a symbol of birth, rebirth and survival, all themes in Feuerman’s work.

“Conceptually, the biggest challenge is to portray the strength of the human spirit,” says Feuerman. “Making a sculpture that is hyperrealistic is not just captured by outward perception, not merely defined by physical forms and spatial fields that blend together but also by interrelationships composed as much by the unseen as by the seen. In the end, it’s like a melting pot, where physicality, sensuality, perfection, and vitality become one.”