We are talking about Tamara Riedel, The Betonist, her live and her body of works

The artist, Tamara Riedel, born in Georgia and based in Switzerland, has developed a unique technique for working with concrete, often combining it with other materials such as copper and epoxy resin to create sculptures that impart a sense of apparent lightness and warmth from the cold material. A central theme of her work is female identity and self-determination, which she emphasises through the deliberate depiction of oversized breasts and vulvas, as well as sensual female faces. Her figures, often hybrid beings between human and animal or robotic, are deliberately ambiguous, provocative, and playful at the same time, frequently addressing existential and societal issues such as displacement, gender duality, or vulnerability in the modern world. Riedel’s international experience and her childhood in Soviet Georgia, shaped by monumental architecture and Soviet cartoons, strongly influence her ambivalent aesthetic and her fascination with concrete as a medium of artistic expression.