Lurra (Earth)

As if forged in centre of the earth, Eduardo Chillida’s Lurra (Earth) (1985) evokes an ancient time. Into the burnt, blazing red clay, the artist has incised otherworldly geometries, whose tidy outlines resist the emotive surface. Even at their most abstract and geometric, Chillida’s forms are imbued with a profound sense of the natural world. The ruddy and scorched variations of the fired clay are suggestive of the land around San Sebastian, the city where the artist was born. This feeling is also echoed in the work’s title, which is comes from the Basque word meaning ‘earth’. Lurra forms part of a larger series that celebrates the mutable nature of material: the kiln’s heat transforms the terracotta into unique works, each displaying subtle and mesmeric variations in colour and tone.