Why Are the Animals Suspended? Inside Bombardieri’s Sculptural World

Stefano Bombardieri’s animals occupy an uncertain space between physical power and vulnerability. Elephants, rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses, rendered with close attention to anatomy, appear suspended in mid-air. Their bodies retain a convincing sense of mass, yet their circumstances interrupt the familiar relationship between weight, gravity and movement.

Presented at Oblong Contemporary, his bronze sculptures reflect an artistic practice concerned with time and its perception, the meaning of human existence and the experience of pain.

Why Are the Animals Suspended? The Meaning Behind the Sculptures

Throughout Bombardieri’s work, animals appear suspended, trapped or burdened by piles of luggage. Their anatomical realism makes these situations particularly disquieting: every fold of skin affirms the credibility of the body, while its circumstances remain improbable and beyond its control.

In Il Peso del Tempo Sospeso — The Weight of Suspended Time — suspension can be understood as both a physical and a temporal condition. The animal has lost its footing, but the moment itself also appears arrested. The viewer encounters a state of waiting, with no visible resolution.

The contrast between strength and helplessness gives these works their psychological force. Creatures whose size suggests autonomy become dependent on the structures that hold them. Their power remains intact, yet it cannot alter their circumstances. Read in human terms, this paradox evokes the experience of possessing strength while remaining subject to forces beyond one’s control.

The Complexity of Bronze

The use of bronze gives these works both a material presence and an additional technical challenge. Translating the sculpted form into metal requires precision through casting, finishing and patination, preserving the smallest details while maintaining the coherence of the whole.

Folds of skin, muscular contours and subtle changes in texture are essential to the animals’ convincing presence. Finishing requires particular care so that these qualities remain legible in the bronze surface.

Patination adds another dimension. Colour and tonal variation articulate the form, giving depth to recesses and allowing raised surfaces to catch the light. The resulting surface contributes directly to how the sculpture is perceived, from its overall silhouette to its most delicate details.

In the suspended works, the substantial weight of bronze intensifies the visual paradox. A material associated with permanence and solidity appears to hover, held between heaviness and apparent lightness.

Vulnerability and Possibility

Bombardieri’s encounters between children and large animals offer another understanding of strength. In his essay for Bombardieri e altri animali, curator Luca Beatrice describes a young girl lifting an elephant, interpreting the encounter through courage and the capacity to challenge gravity, logic and accepted limits.

The scene reverses conventional expectations of power. The child’s small stature becomes the measure of her extraordinary courage, suggesting that the ability to overcome an obstacle cannot always be judged by physical strength.

Across these works, weight, dependence, waiting and resistance take sculptural form. The animal becomes a means of examining the distance between what a body seems capable of and what its circumstances permit.

Discover Stefano Bombardieri’s sculptures at Oblong Contemporary.