Sophie Hirsch Anneal

Anneal (2026)

Sophie Hirsch's work series consists of eight wall works titled Anneal. All eight pieces originate from the same mould, yet gradually change through repeated casting, material interaction and time: subtle shifts in colour and surface turn each piece into a variation rather than a copy. 

The title is drawn from materials science, where annealing describes the reorganisation of a material's internal structure after stress—essentially a reshaping from within. The starting point is a plaster cast of a stone, eroded by the sea, found on the Lido di Venezia. It is the first time the artist has worked with a mould she did not create herself. She has also worked cabbage into the cast, introducing a further, natural texture. Set in square frames—a format new to Hirsch—the works function both individually and as a grid.

Sophie Hirsch

In a close, hands-on engagement with posture, bodily memory and emotional processes, Sophie Hirsch (*1986, Vienna) explores the interplay of materiality, movement and tension, in which the robust within the fragile meets the fragile within the robust. Shaped by earlier experiences at a Pilates studio in New York, she understands the body as a structure that can be formed and manipulated. Using materials such as silicone, metal, fabric, thera-bands, fascia balls and orthopaedic cushions, she creates works that draw on somatic treatment techniques while deploying the grotesque and the discomforting as much as the graceful and the seductive.

Portrait: (c) Christoph Liebentritt