Rona Pondick

[2] An abiding concern of hers has been the exploration of the use of different materials, a consistent motif that runs throughout her work from its beginnings to the present day.

Her palette begins with the primary hues for photographic printing—magenta, cyan, and yellow—to which she adds green, blue, black, and white.

[8] Made from resin, acrylic, and an epoxy modeling compound…they are each partly translucent and in places almost evanescent, changing as the light changes and as viewers move around them… The addition of color and the new materials significantly alter the visual impact and emotional tenor of Pondick’s art.” [9] In her sculpture, Pondick has always used traditional methods such as carving, hand-modeling, mold-making, and metal casting, and at times, has used the latest in 3D computer technologies occasionally for modeling but largely for scaling.

[11] From the late 1980s to early 1990s, Pondick made sculptures of beds using pillows, cloth, and wood, some with baby bottles strapped to them with rope.

[15] Beginning in 1998, Pondick began to make sculptures that merged parts of animals and flora with those of her own body, primarily casting them in bronze or stainless steel.

[21] Her first tree/human hybrid sculpture incorporated the artist's miniaturized head as buds in the tree branches, using aluminum, bronze, and stainless steel.

Her first tree/human hybrid sculpture was Pussy Willow Tree in 2001, commissioned by Fondation pour l’art contemporain Claudine et Jean-Marc Salomon in Annecy, France.

Head in Tree is an example of Pondick's hybrid sculptures; here, the artist has incorporated her life-sized head into the center of a tree, cast in matte finish stainless steel, highly polished for the back of the head.
Dog, created between 1998 and 2001, displays the core elements of Pondick's human-animal hybrids. Here, the artist's head and hands are combined with a dog's body, cast in highly polished stainless steel.