BUILDING A, cast bronze, black patina

Susan Hefuna favors intertwining lines and abstract structural forms in her work. Hefuna spends her time in Cairo, Düsseldorf and New York, creating works of sculpture, drawing, photography and more.

I like seeing the way Hefuna’s drawing practice translates into her sculpture practice. In many cases, it seems as if the two-dimensional subjects in the former come to life as three-dimensional structures. Mysterious forms made up of many heavy, criss-crossed lines feature heavily in Hefuna’s drawing portfolio. The works are usually monochromatic and sit on neutral backgrounds of unprimed paper. As a series, their presence is mysterious and almost ritualistic when one imagines the artist creating each overlapping line.

Red Thought, watercolor on tracing paper

I also quite enjoy Hefuna’s photographic explorations. The photos are decidedly unpolished and sometimes abstracted, such as in two series that feature the figure of a woman, sometimes obscured behind odd lighting or architectural elements. The slightly obtuse nature of these images is reminiscent of the work of Kyla Slobodin.

Woman Delta, C-print mounted behind plexiglass