Material Matters : New Artists & Works at Twenty First Gallery

Yasmin Bawa is a British-American sculptor whose practice is rooted in natural materials, traditional hand-building techniques, and an intuitive approach to form. She studied fashion in London and worked in the industry for several years before turning fully to sculpture. After nearly a decade in Berlin developing her practice, she recently relocated to the Ardèche region of southern France, where she now lives and works among mountains and rivers. 

At the core of her work is hemp lime, a compound of hemp shiv and lime binder used to sculpt the main structure of each piece. This is layered with successive coats of lime plaster and finished by hand using a polishing technique inspired by Moroccan tadelakt. Yasmin’s forms are curved, organic, and quietly present. They sit between sculpture and object, created as much to be lived with as to be observed. Her work explores ideas of roots, identity, and belonging, shaped by a life lived across cultures and landscapes.

Conie Vallese, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is an artist and designer whose practice moves fluidly between sculpture, ceramics, textiles, and bronze objects. Refusing fixed categories, she builds a body of work where art, design, and everyday life are deeply intertwined.

Her work is rooted in a close observation of nature. Flowers, organic forms, and botanical patterns become recurring motifs through which she explores themes of beauty, fragility, and resilience. Working with materials such as bronze and clay, Vallese translates this delicate natural world into objects that balance softness and strength.

Shaped by a creative family background—surrounded by painting, sculpture, and design from an early age—she developed a sensibility for form through lived experience rather than formal boundaries. For Vallese, “there is no work without life and no life without work,” a philosophy that runs through her entire practice.

Her approach is intuitive and process-driven, treating each piece as a trace of lived moments. Moving between disciplines and contexts, including the worlds of art, design, and fashion, she embraces a practice in constant evolution, grounded in simplicity, material honesty, and the poetics of transformation.

Her work has been presented internationally, including at Design Miami in collaboration with Fendi, marking a significant moment in her expanding presence within the collectible design landscape. Vallese’s practice has also been featured in leading publications such as Elle and Vogue, reflecting a growing recognition of her distinctive voice at the intersection of art, design, and fashion.

Géraldine Cornette de Saint Cyr is a Paris-based French ceramist whose work is rooted in the transformative power of craft. She approaches each piece as both a tactile experience and a narrative object, where every detail invites the imagination to wander.

Her creations intentional and useful, adorned with echoing motifs drawn from a wide range of inspirations: tribal art, Art Deco, the shifting seasons, and the natural textures of wood, stone, or woven fibers.

The result is a collection of unique pieces that are at once dense and delicate, animated by matter and light. Each piece tells its own story, not only through its form but through the dialogue it creates between utility and artistry. In her hands, clay becomes a language—one that speaks to the resilience of craft and the enduring power of the handmade.

Born in the United States in 1986, J McDonald studied architecture before founding a high-end‭ metal fabrication studio in New York, where he produced technically complex works for leading‭ artists and designers while independently pursuing sculpture. In 2018, he began merging these‭ parallel practices with his first furniture pieces, leading to the creation of Studio J McDonald,‬ now based between Brooklyn and Accord, New York.‬

McDonald’s work exists at the intersection of sculpture, furniture, and architecture, and explores‭ tensions between intuition and rationality, the natural and the constructed, the analog and the‭ digital. His pieces fuse strict geometric logic with gestural, organic forms. Drawing on his deep‭ expertise in metalworking and craftsmanship, he balances formal precision with textural‭ spontaneity: metals offer structural clarity and order, while resins and plasters offer complexity,‭ softness, and visible traces of the hand.‬

‭This dialogue between order and chaos reflects his core preoccupation: the contradictions‭ inherent in the human condition and our uneasy relationship with nature. His works often appear‭ animated or alive: mirrors ripple, tables lean, volumes erode or distort, challenging assumptions‭ about stability, function, and form. For McDonald, each object becomes a perceptual tool,‭ inviting viewers to reimagine their relationship to their environment.‬

‭His inspirations range from insect architecture and geological processes to classical geometry‭ and the subconscious. Through a process grounded in experimentation and refinement, he‭ moves fluidly between digital and analog processes to produce sculptural works that redefine‬ how we inhabit and interpret the material world.‬

McDonald’s work has been exhibited internationally and featured in design publications and‬ critical essays.‬