Soft Guts and Steel Nerves: Holly Hendry’s Playful Anatomy of Space

Industrial pipes twist like oversized intestines, pastel hues soften the blow, and walls seem to reveal their secret innards—Holly Hendry’s sculptures turn the hidden workings of both bodies and buildings inside out. Her installations, often sprawling and hefty, balance the clinical with the cartoonish, using materials that evoke both flesh and concrete. Hendry’s process is a blend of forensic research and playful experimentation, drawing inspiration from medical diagrams, myth, and the architectural quirks of each exhibition site. Her works, such as the wormy ducts of Sottobosco at London’s Hayward Gallery or the kinetic, rubbery slabs of Slacker, play with scale and sensation—oscillating between the microscopic and the monumental. Water, too, seeps into her recent projects, echoing the movement of rivers and the fragility of human bodies. Whether glass, metal, or synthetic skin, Hendry’s materials seem caught between chaos and order, always on the verge of unraveling. In her hands, the guts of the world become visible, and the ordinary pulses with unexpected life. #ContemporaryArt #Sculpture #HollyHendry #Culture