A freshwater Serpent

A Freshwater Serpent (2026) is a fountain sculpture by the Spanish artist Leonor Serrano Rivas (b. 1986, Malaga, Spain). The work comprises six elliptical metal tubes arranged in a circular formation and connected by three central discs. The tubes bear an array of flowers which the artist transformed into metallic objects using a process called electroforming, an electrochemical process which deposits layers of metal ions around the original organic structures, thereby encasing them in hardened metal shells. Water circulates through the tubes and collects in a metal basin at the sculpture’s base. As it trickles over the electroformed flowers, it continues their material transformation through the naturally occurring processes of oxidation and corrosion. The surfaces develop in a vivid patina of rusting blues and greens, recording the passage of time, cycle of water, and attendant states of weathering that are integral to the work.

In A Freshwater Serpent, water acts as an instrument of change, gradually altering the work’s mineral composition, and consequently its surface, colour and texture. The work reflects the artist’s broader concern with how materials behave. She says, “I work with materials for what they do, not for what they mean. Blown glass breathes like a body, copper oxidises like living skin, a 16mm reel accumulates time and light. Materiality is both language and thinking.” The artist links the work to a period of research conducted into premodern material knowledge in the territory of Cáceres, a city founded by the ancient Romans situated in the Extremadura region of Spain, where her primary concern is with the relation between the work’s inherent properties and the structure of knowledge itself, which she describes as “accumulative, cyclical, material.” 1

1 https://leonorserranorivas.com/

-Elsa Gray