With a language grounded in abstraction, interruption and spatial negotiation, Nairy Baghramian develops a sculptural practice that explores the limits and vulnerabilities of the body in relation to its architectural and institutional surroundings, her work engages with the notion of the prosthesis not as a corrective extension but as a conceptual hinge between presence and absence, movement and stillness, her forms—often soft-edged, pastel-coloured or made from polished wood—evoke limbs, joints or anatomical remnants without ever fully resembling them, instead, they rest against walls, lean precariously, or collapse onto floors, inhabiting space like bodies out of sync, her approach stems from a childhood memory of dance, where gestures were broken down into elemental positions, a method that now informs her fragmented and disarticulated compositions, while Baghramian’s materials—resin, steel, silicone, wood—refer to both domestic and institutional environments, the resulting pieces resist stability, highlighting the precariousness of embodied experience, a recurrent theme is the emotive awkwardness of these sculptures, as if they demand to be read as misfits, evoking care, discomfort or estrangement, for instance, in exhibitions like Déformation Professionnelle or Hand Me Down, she draws attention to how bodies are shaped, constrained or mirrored by societal roles and physical structures, by refusing monumentality and embracing ambivalence, Baghramian inserts her work into both public and private realms of perception, constructing a critical sculptural vocabulary that reflects on identity, functionality and the politics of spatial occupation.
