Jill Berelowitz

Jill Berelowitz, born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1955, is one of London's most recognised sculptors, renowned for her sculptures placed across the capital. Berelowitz's high-profile public commissions include the "Diving Girl" at the entrance to the London 2012 Olympic Village, "Core Femme" outside Charing Cross Hospital, the Dorchester Sphere, a majestic 2.6-meter tall bronze globe celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee and the ‘Hallway Companion’ at 5 meters high in the central space of George, Mayfair.

Throughout Berelowitz’s work there is a duality always present, from her patinas to how she treats her subject. She focuses on two themes in her private work - the feminine form and objects from the organic world. Her female forms are almost ghost like in their sinuous shapes, but with strength showing through them in their jagged edges or bright reflective surfaces. Each piece combines the fragile ethereal sensuosity of womanhood juxtaposed with the pure understanding of what can be achieved in her mediums, reflecting back in bright patinas the unbreakable strength of women.

Her organic series, influenced by the primedial landscape of her youth, at first appears disconnected from her other work. Small forms become monumental, opposite to her feminine work, strength is the first element you understand. By changing the scale of our organic surroundings, she highlights the ancient prehistoric elements in petal, leaf or curve but with a startling modernity in their scale and patinas, which simultaneously states they will survive into our far future. The pure empathic nature of the artist however, is hidden at first until you understand that all of her organics, provide humans with sustenance or natural medicine through time, which we are only now embracing once more.

Berelowitz is a rare sculptor today, in that she loves her main medium, bronze and because she works alongside the artisans in one of the best foundries in the world, her works push beyond what most modern sculptors can achieve today. There are no heavy, one dimensional patinas on her work, but subtle washes that glimmer with bright colour, with areas where pure bronze is allowed to shine through in all its purity. Berelowitz has a pureness of empathic soul, which on meeting her you cannot miss, but in her work it is unmissable in the way we connect to deep themes of humanity.