FREE SKATE (OUR LADY ON THE ICE)

Free Skate (Our Lady on the Ice) transforms an everyday skating scene into an image charged with spiritual symbolism, freedom, and quiet contemplation. A solitary skater glides across the ice, her arms gently crossed and her body seemingly suspended between movement and stillness.

The title changes the way we read the figure. The luminous golden circle surrounding her head evokes the traditional halo of sacred imagery, while her pale, enveloping clothing recalls the silhouette of a devotional figure. Yet she wears ice skates. By bringing these visual references onto the rink, the artist creates an unexpected dialogue between the sacred and the ordinary, tradition and contemporary life.

Expressive lines, translucent layers and fragments of collage give the figure an almost ethereal presence. Against the intense blue and deep black background, the white ice becomes an open space through which she appears to float rather than skate. Her vividly coloured skates provide a playful counterpoint, grounding this almost icon-like figure in the physical world.

Within the Sports & Art collection, the work offers a particularly poetic interpretation of sport: skating becomes less about competition than about grace, balance and personal liberation.

A contemporary Madonna of the rink, finding grace not in stillness, but in the freedom to move.