"It is not my way to adapt on site a previously prepared sculpture", says the sculptor Or-nah Ran, "I would not copy and scale up a sculpture created in the studio. I create the actual work in the very location where it will stand and its environment grows with it.
When I am about to begin a new project, the first task is a “fragmentation journey”. First, I fragment the future environment intended to the sculpture into its various elements, and I study every one of them separately: history, tradition, archeology, climate, geology, flora and fauna, the surrounding population and any other relevant element.
I carry on the journey and fragment myself. I listen to my feeling and experience of the place, I ask myself what belongs and what is worth. I analyze how I can grow together with the creation. My work goes between the abstract and the figurative; I would call it “organic”. Its topics always include basic elements of movement and feeling, built up and developed in the sculpture, and released onto the onlooker.
Then it comes to the materialization process. Models, sketches, the decision of what materials the final sculpture will be made of, the selection of the engineering schema and the thinking about the details and the way of implementing. It is very important to me that the “spirit” and the “body” of the creation would develop together and reflect on each other; to me the unity of the beauty of the structure, of the particular environment and the inner dynamics of the creation is essential.
At that point, there is always a “methodic” pause, which may takes longer, or even longer… It is the phase of getting approvals and permits, securing a budget and call for tenders. Finally an entrepreneur is selected and we can go forward!
The process of building my sculpture is always a moving experience to me, again and again. Moving from the view around, of spending my time outdoors, of handling the building materials, of meeting people – those who work with me on the project, the neighbors, passers-by, everyone experiences, reacts, debates.
It is vital to me to create sculptures in harmony with their environment, and I drive my ego into inner cancelled locations.
In a natural unspoiled environment, revealed in all its power, I totally give up and I humbly take my hat off. On the other hand, I also try not to work in an environment in which I expect that the sculpture will not be valued so much. This is the reason why my environmental works look like they always have been there; and people who meet me for the first time react by saying: “What? Are you the one who made this?”"