V: What's the story of the three green stone sculptures in your studio?
AG: They are made out of Indian soapstone. One of them is the left butt cheek of my wife and is called "half-assed", because its only the half of an ass. Half of the stone I left untouched which is a playful reminder of an half-assed job, hence the name.
"Almost Eight" is a sculpture I created in direct carving. There was no planning or thought-out idea. I simply allowed the material to lead me into forming it to what I felt like was its calling. With the third one, "Carrespondence", I tried to create a correspondence between two objects in a very gentle way, so it‘s a word play on caress and correspondence.
V: Do you always let an idea guide you or it it also the material that speaks to you? What's your creative process like?
AG: I think overall my creative process is driven by what currently inspires me. I gather objects, quotes, visuals - anything that evokes something inside me. Then I analyse my subjet of interest, its lines, curves. I choose extracts from it and try to reinterpret them through the language of sculpting. But I also think that each work of mine has a slightly different process, some of them are far more abstract and driven by form and movement, some are more conceptual.
Actually, the three sculptures we just spoke about are somewhat representitive of my creative process. If I have a specific idea, I will look for a material that has the size, initial shape and qualities that will allow me to execute my idea. You know, that one stone that has my sculpture hiding inside, waiting to be carved out. But I also love being more intuitive and I naturally am a very intuitive person. I love walking around and looking at stones and other materials that have a natural shape, that almost seem to call me to play with. Then of course, it also comes down to supply and what's available around you.