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Natalie Mandel

Natalie Mandel

Artist , sculptor

A vibrant outdoor sculpture made from vivid pink car parts, arranged in a blooming flower-like form, perched on an old stone wall. At the center, a woman—the artist Natalie Mandel ,nude and curled in a fetal position—emerges from the structure, gazing upward with a fragile, questioning expression. Set against a calm valley landscape with soft light and cloudy skies, the sculpture evokes both rebirth and motion.

ARTIST STATEMENT___My art is a profound exploration about construction and deconstruction, in search of natural forms ; I seek to capture the moment where conflict becomes harmony, and chaos becomes form.

I assemble paradoxical mirror-images of nature ; each sculpture represents an embodiment of a natural form—from delicate flora and fauna to chaotic abstract constructions. I don’t imitate nature’s surface—I respond to its logic: growth without symmetry, chaos that adapts into order.

There is something in me that needs to be translated into form, something ancient that recognises the logic of roots ; When I sculpt, I mirror the energy of the natural world. I capture the reflection of this infinite energy into form ; sculpture.  And what is sculpture? A moment frozen in time, a frozen movement of something infinite.

My work offers moments of elevation and reconnection, It stands as a poetic homage to the natural world—its mysteries, contradictions, and quiet, relentless power.

Welcome to my world.

series 1 : Wild Plastic

series 2 : Future Nature

The Artist-Natalie Mandel standing on a scaffold supporting a large sculpture in the middle of green mountain view, on her face a look of focused expresion, as she is in the work process of building the sculpture, holding an electric cord or a rope.

Work Process

I work with everyday objects ; Each object is carefully selected with great sensitivity to its hidden symbolism. The objects undergo physical and emotional manipulation, from the first stage in which they are collected through the transformation that is made to them—breaking, bending, melting, connecting, imaginary metamorphosis to the finished shape – a sculpture , a new form, but the objects keep their original function visible and recognisable ; Preserving the properties from their previous incarnation even when it is reused as an element in the formation of the sculptural shape.
The aspect of recognition is an integral part in my work—I ask the viewer to take an active part in the elevation of the everyday objects, to identify the parts but also to accept them in their new meaning ; identification and re-acceptance ; I essentially require the viewer to undergo an evolution in real time.

My techniques are unorthodox—I make strange connections ; impossible, even absurd. I bend tools beyond their design: welding, melting, vacuum-forming, laminating electronic components into new anatomies, car parts into flower petals. The process is a ritual ; I follow the objects pull, their resistance; the rhythm builds—choose, cut, bend, bind, release, over and over until meaning emerges through the repetition.
Each sculpture becomes a record of that invisible path—a map of a journey guided solely by intuition.

For the last fifteen years i am working on two main series that differ in mediums, size, and techniques.
Despite the wide differ between the two series, they hold a similar presence of ideas, which allows a unique resonance to expand the conceptual significance embedded in the sculptures ; Experiments in shape, structure, and time, and the infinite search for natural forms :

the artist Natalie Mandel working on her sculpture.

Series 1: Wild plastic
An ongoing conversation between destruction and creation

A sculptural series of large-scale abstract-organic forms, using plastic car parts as the primary medium for the works. Plastic is a paradox ; It endures longer than any natural material, yet it represents the disposable. I use it to echo the organic ; I allow the form to grow the way plants grow, following pressure, space and resistance. I let the sculpture expand until it reaches its complete form.
Each broken part I collect has been altered by trauma ; I don’t repair it—I listen to it, I read its scars.
It’s not recycling. It’s resurrection.

The process is intuitive ; I don’t sketch, I feel—I follow an abstract emotion that moves through me ; It guides me to assemble, to balance and bind the parts into new life. The sculpture builds itself through me ; I am the conduit. This is a spiritual practice, It is listening to something deeper than language. It is memory without narrative. It is grief, transformation, survival.

The finished sculptures are not symbols. They are not metaphors. They simply are ; alive with contradiction, vibrating between delicate flowers and exploding chaos. With every new work, the forms stretch further from what is known. They move beyond representation and begin to speak in their own language ; wild and free.

Images : Wild Plastic selected works 2012 - 2025

A large, radiant sculpture by Natalie Mandel , made from repurposed plastic car parts bursts outward in arcs of yellow, pink, and purple, resembles a flower mid-transformation — too wild to be contained in the gallery.

A large-scale sculpture by Natalie Mandel, composed of red and grey plastic car parts, arranged in a dramatic, outward-blooming form that evokes both organic petals and mechanical rupture, stands on a white platform in a contemporary gallery space.

A red and green sculpture by Natalie Mandel made from repurposed plastic car parts rests gently on a moss-covered rock in the forest. Shaped like a blooming rose, the sculpture blends seamlessly into the soft, dappled light of its surroundings. Its curved, leaf-like and petal-like forms give it a delicate presence, as though it had quietly grown from the earth itself.

A large green and pink sculpture by Natalie Mandel made from repurposed plastic car parts rests on a mossy rock in a quiet forest. The curved green panels form open, leaf-like shapes, while a vivid pink bloom emerges at the center like a tulip beginning to open. Sunlight filters through the trees, blending the artificial structure into the surrounding nature, creating a moment of softness, contrast, and quiet transformation.

A sculptural bloom made of green and red plastic car parts emerges from the corner of an old stone building in a wild, overgrown landscape. Mounted high against the blue sky, the sculpture feels like a strange flower reclaiming its place. Below, a woman- Natalie Mandel the artist, gazes up at the form, bridging the tension between human, nature, and artificial growth.

A monumental white and green sculpture by Natalie Mandel, resembling a giant blooming rose with sprawling vine-like tendrils made of twisted plastic car parts, mounted dramatically across the stone façade of an old rural building; the flower’s head crowns the rooftop while its green limbs twist down past the windows, blending into the raw textures of the weathered stone walls under a wide open sky.

A large sculptural form by Natalie Mandel, made from plastic car parts expands outward in twisting, layered curves. Resting on a glowing white platform in a gallery space, the piece appears frozen mid-eruption — a dense, controlled explosion. Titled Seed of Chaos, the work balances power and symmetry, holding motion at the edge of stillness.

abstract sculpture by artist Natalie Mandel, made from plastic car parts and placed in a gallery with dramatic light.

A sculptural form by Natalie Mandel made from repurposed plastic car parts unfolds in deep pink, purple, and violet tones, creating a tightly layered bloom-like shape. Resting on a pale platform in a gallery with concrete walls and soft lighting, the sculpture appears both heavy and ethereal. Its coiled structure and vivid colors draw the viewer into its center, evoking a quiet intensity and emotional depth.

A large sculptural form by Natalie Mandel, made from blue plastic car parts expands in layered, curved segments from a dense central core. Displayed in an outdoor installation the piece appears frozen mid-motion — like a mechanical bloom or an elegant explosion. The color contrast and symmetry create a striking presence that draws the viewer into its quiet power.

A large-scale sculpture by Natalie Mandel, composed of red and blue plastic car parts, arranged in a dramatic, outward-blooming form that evokes both organic petals and mechanical rupture, stands on a white platform in a contemporary gallery space. , its vibrant curves reaching toward the ceiling while visitors pass quietly in the background.

A twisting sculpture by Natalie Mandel made of teal and purple plastic car parts rises like a wind-swept current in a stone-walled gallery. Its curved, layered surfaces evoke movement and transformation, as if the structure is unfolding in real time. The contrast between its synthetic material and the ancient setting enhances the tension between motion and stillness, growth and decay.

Series 2: Future Nature
A study in techno-organic evolution ; sculpture collection and a book soon to be published.

This series of over 100 small-scale sculptures spans more than a decade of creation and inquiry ;
The work fuses art, science, philosophy and material logic ; Each sculpture is a node—an experiment in form, a question in motion.
Hybrid creatures, constructed from discarded technology, broken machines, and obsolete devices—lifeforms born from the ruins of consumerism and the poetics of wild nature. Some resemble insects, others feel aquatic, and many are completely unfamiliar.
They are not futuristic in material—but in vision ; Each sculpture imagines a future where technology and biology merge and new species emerge from this fusion.
The sculptures are playful, surreal, and sometimes eerie, but beneath their strange anatomy lives a quiet urgency—Future Nature suggests that what we often perceive as the "replacement" of nature by technology is, in fact, a new stage of natural evolution ; It is not replacement. It is adaptation at the highest level—nature expanding its definitions to include the synthetic, the coded, and the manufactured.

The sculptures asks the viewer to recognise—fragments of the familiar, repurposed into something unknown, and in that recognition, to witness a new kind of metamorphosis.

Images : Future Nature selected works 2010 - 2025

sculpture studio, work in progress, a small sculpture made from electronic and analog waste.

About me

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