Winston Wächter Fine Art is pleased to announce a new show by sculptor Julie Speidel. Beginning with a vocabulary of forms pulled from ancient ceremonial stonework that she considers to be universal, Speidel reworks and re-imagines that language in glass, bronze and stone. Ancient megaliths dwarf and humble the human viewer with their sheer size, but there is also an element of mystery and, one suspects, magic that plays into their special power. Speidel’s sculptures are created with a more intimate, but no less magical experience in mind. They have a quiet power all their own, and an intense but graceful energy.

This show features sculptures that are inspired by their unusual source material. While she normally works with locally quarried stone from the Pacific Northwest, she recently obtained stone from China that for centuries had lined canals and served as the steps to homes. Seen by millions of eyes and passed over by millions of feet, these humble utilitarian blocks are transformed by Speidel, given a new vertical orientation, cut, carved, polished, and ultimately translated into her own language of forms. Sometimes purely abstract, sometimes insistently figurative, always enticing, Speidel’s sculptures invite the viewer in to explore every nuance.