A Theatre of Transformation

Step into David Altmejd’s world, and the boundaries of the material dissolve. Heads morph into rabbits, serpents coil into infinity, swans become instruments played by unseen forces. His sculptures do not rest; they shimmer between states of being, caught in an eternal moment of becoming.

Altmejd has never been interested in static perfection. His work pulses with an animating force, a tension between form and flux. Chaos and order—two gravitational forces—govern his process, shaping his surreal, psychological landscapes. This is sculpture as alchemy, as mythmaking, as a ritual of self-discovery.

The Serpent and the Charmer: Creation in Dialogue

Entering the gallery, we are greeted by The Serpent, a monumental chain of conjoined human heads, shifting in scale until they dissolve into rabbits. It is a sculpture that seems to breathe, to multiply. But where does it end?

Enter Snake Charmer, its enigmatic counterpart. If The Serpent is unchecked evolution, Snake Charmer is its silent governor. Altmejd sees the two as engaged in a symbiotic act—creation and creator, chaos and control, locked in perpetual conversation. The Trickster, that Jungian shapeshifter, lurks within this shifting mass, pulling at the edges of order, whispering subversion.

Music, Myth, and the Architecture of Sound

On the gallery’s upper level, another world unfolds—one of music, dance, and mythology. Swans and nymphic figures commune in an ecstatic choreography, their forms both solid and flickering, like notes suspended in the air.

Two sculptures—The Prometheus Chord and The Lydian Chord—depict swans transfigured into musical instruments, played by otherworldly figures. Their faces are veiled, their presence electric. They are rock stars from another dimension, ancient gods reimagined as cosmic performers.

The swan itself is a duality: both delicate and fearsome, a symbol of grace and masculine virility dating back to Zeus and Leda. It is a creature that glides over water while dipping beneath its surface—a perfect metaphor for the unconscious mind, where Altmejd’s forms emerge.

Music, too, is a hidden architecture. Across philosophy and physics, it has been considered the secret code of the universe, the underlying structure of existence. But Altmejd resists rigidity.

If music symbolizes order, I want to make matter dance.

– He says.

Sculpting the Unconscious: Matter in Motion

Altmejd does not impose; he follows. His sculptures reveal themselves, shaping their own destinies. The artist surrenders to the intelligence of matter, to its desire to transform.

This push and pull between control and release permeates his practice. Some surfaces are polished, others raw and unfinished, as though the figures are still in the process of becoming.

On the walls, mounted heads stand in silent observation, hands cupped around mouths, as if whispering secrets into the void. Their titles—C, E, G#, B—correspond to musical notes, tuning the air itself. Sound, myth, and sculpture collapse into a single frequency, vibrating between states of presence and absence.

The Sculptor as Conduit

Altmejd is not merely the maker of these works; he is their witness, their channel. His sculptures are not fixed objects but living systems, perpetually unraveling and reconstructing themselves. He invites us into this dance of creation and destruction, asking us to linger in the in-between.

Sculpture, in his hands, becomes a mirror—reflecting not just form, but the shifting, unknowable landscapes of the self.