Puy Soden

Puy Soden builds large scale, time-bound, painting installations on specific sites in the landscape. Puy’s approach to building these temporary structures is experimental and process focused. There is never a set outcome, and the video/photo documentation of the experimental interaction with the material becomes the artwork.

Puy chooses specific materials according to their physical properties, availability, affordability and alignment with her sustainability values. She selects specific rural locations according to their accessibility, geology, view and sun position. By creating these outdoor installations, she advocates:

- improvised, intuitive art-making that focuses on the activity rather than the outcome;

- connection with and respect for the landscape;

- temporary artworks that leave nothing behind;

- accessible ways of making art with affordable materials and processes;

- a multidimensional approach to painting with the artist’s interaction with the materials as central.

As an artist educator, Puy is an ambassador for process focused art-making. She helps people to discover the creative freedom and potential that comes from developing an experimental, open-ended approach. Puy feels privileged to witness the growth in people’s confidence to explore their creativity once they’ve experienced a shift from product to process. Enabling this shift is her teaching speciality.

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  1. Ursula von Rydingsvard Heart in Hand, 2014, Courtesy the artist, Galerie Lelong New York and YSP at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
    Art Outdoors

    Ursula von Rydingsvard: Heart in Hand

    Heart in Hand relates to an earlier, larger work called Luba that was made in cedar and bronze, and is on permanent display at Storm King Art Center in upstate New York. Both works are intended to suggest a sense of protection and nurturing, like the arm of a mother cradling a baby.
  2. Marialuisa Tadei, Octopus 2011. Courtesy the artist and YSP at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
    Art Outdoors

    Marialuisa Tadei: Octopus

    Octopus (Polipo) is formed of hand-cut, coloured glass tiles which are carefully pieced together over the concrete and steel structure. It is a key example of Tadei’s use of mosaic to elevate everyday forms into a more ethereal realm.
  3. Nigel Hall Crossing Horizontal 2006 Courtesy the artist at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
    Art Outdoors

    Nigel Hall: Crossing (Horizontal)

  4. Detail of Willem Boshoff – Flagstone 2016 which reads "Gutta cavat Lapidem,"at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
    Art Outdoors

    Willem Boshoff: Flagstone

    Willem Boshoff’s Flagstone is a sculpture and a seat, positioned here overlooking Upper Lake to provide a space for rest and contemplation. In summer 2018, Boshoff spent a month at YSP, researching and meticulously recording the flora and fauna. Each day he walked the paths around the Park and became particularly fond of the areas around the Lakes. The residency was followed by an exhibition in Upper Space and the subsequent gift of Flagstone as a permanent work for YSP’s landscape.