Raya Bodnarchuk

The daughter of two artists, Raya Bodnarchuk began sculpting animals from clay at the age of two. The artist states that she does not draw inspiration from real animals but that each piece she makes serves as the creative source for the next. Bodnarchuk bases her sculptures on shapes she finds in the world around her, but she reduces them to their most essential form. By simplifying the pointed, bushy tail of a fox, for example, to a clean, half-moon shape, she creates a sculpture that appears almost abstract. Bodnarchuk uses a chainsaw to carve from wood because she believes that the shapes she wants can be made much more quickly with a chainsaw than with a chisel.