Petra Boshart

‘Petra’ is the Greek word for ‘stone’. So was it perhaps preordained in her name that Petra Boshart would pledge her heart to this tough, recalcitrant material? No, the relationship goes deeper than that. Hewing stone has been in her family’s blood for generations. Boshart’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all stonemasons, but she is one of the first to approach the material as a visual artist. Her sculptures embody a universal value. They appear as though they have always been there, yet at the same time they are completely new and unprecedented. Their abstract shapes hark back to symbols and artefacts from lost civilisations, or call up associations with the most varied products of nature. Thus her images, both earthly and spiritual at the same time, exert a deep influence on the viewer’s subconscious.