Sollai Cartwright | New Works

22 October – 26 November 2016

“For me, art is about healing. And I feel that when I create I am adding goodness to the universe. It’s my one true mission and I live by it, dedicating myself to the purpose and the intention. I believe in pure evolution and that by making things for the sake of beauty I am living up to the responsibilities of the creator. An artist has to make a connection with his soul and the soul of the stone. It is a partnership and a sharing of direction; a dialogue that rings in hammer blows. 

When in this frame of mind, form grows of its own accord and I feel I am hardly responsible. Who is the catalyst of this change? I the artist or the allure of the marble that has chosen me, its own quiet direction of elusive addictive beauty, leading the artist on in a crazed love affair with light and form. When I walk into a marble yard, I am always surprised by how one stone will strike me as ‘the one’. I may deny it, for years in some cases, but inevitably it has chosen me and will await me until we have at last come together to form in honor of the universal spirit, an attempts in pure evolution.

I carve because it takes me away from ego and connects me to the universe in a productive way. That’s healing.”   – Sollai Cartwright

Sollai Cartwright is an Australian sculptor and marble carver. Currently based in Italy, Sollai predominantly works from the marble yards in Pietrasanta, Tuscany; in the same location that Michelangelo worked from, using the very stone from his quarries.