Press release

(EN) Rock Mutation: Shaping Nature, Echoing Tradition, Embracing the Void.
Nick Ervinck’s (°1981) work is deeply rooted in nature, where stone serves not only as inspiration but as a canvas for transformation. His Rock Mutation series explores the tension between control and chaos, between the raw power of natural formations and the artist’s will to reshape them. Though his sculptures echo the rugged contours of boulders and pebbles, they are not mere imitations. Instead, they evolve into fluid, otherworldly forms—somewhere between solid rock and liquid motion—blurring the boundary between the organic and the artificial.

This fascination with primal forms connects to an ancient artistic lineage. Ervinck draws inspiration from Chinese Gongshi rocks, or “scholars’ stones”—naturally eroded limestone formations revered for their unpredictable, almost dreamlike shapes. In Chinese tradition, these stones were believed to hold spirits, embodying landscapes from unseen worlds. They are neither lifeless nor still; they pulse with energy, inviting contemplation. Ervinck channels this same vitality into his sculptures, reimagining the language of stone in a contemporary light.

Alongside these historical echoes, Ervinck is drawn to the idea of negative space—the voids within a sculpture that shape meaning as much as the material itself. During a walk through Shanghai’s Yuyuan Garden, he noticed water-worn rocks sculpted by time, their hollows whispering stories of erosion and renewal. These forms recalled the works of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, whose pierced sculptures embraced emptiness, allowing air and landscape to flow through them. In Western art, the embrace of negative space is a relatively recent phenomenon, shaped by the rise of modern science—the discovery of atoms, the prediction of black holes, the realization that absence is as powerful as presence.

Ervinck takes this concept further, making emptiness an active force within his work. His voids do not simply lighten the form; they invite the viewer inside, drawing them into the sculpture’s inner world. Here, matter and emptiness dance together, the solid yielding to the unseen. Space is no longer just a backdrop—it becomes part of the sculpture itself. In this ever-shifting dialogue between mass and void, between nature’s raw force and the artist’s vision, Ervinck finds his balance. His works do not merely tame nature; they set it free in new and unexpected ways.