Yasmin Watts’ creative process is a synthesis of handcraft and digital innovation—where traditional making meets contemporary architectural thinking. Each work begins with intuitive gestures: paper sketches, hand-cut forms and maquettes built from recycled cardboard. These early studies act as spatial rehearsals, allowing her to test scale, texture, and proportion before expanding them into immersive sculptural environments. Her background in architecture informs this translation, bridging the tactile and the technical with sensitivity and control.

The human figure—central to her practice—is sculpted using clay, wax with both traditional casting and digital techniques. Developed through drawing and model-making, these forms are refined through repetition and gesture, each pose carefully attuned to its surrounding structure. They inhabit architectural contexts not as passive objects, but as emotional carriers—expressive presences that reflect the nuanced relationship between the body and its environment.

Materiality lies at the heart of Yasmin’s methodology. She works with reclaimed and sustainable materials—metals, woods and composites—that offer both durability and symbolic weight. Their rawness contrasts with the delicacy of human form, underscoring themes of fragility, resilience and transformation. Surface is treated not merely as finish, but as a narrative device: scored, pierced, layered, left open to light and breath.

Within this interplay of scale, texture and rhythm, the viewer moves beyond mere observation into a deeper, intuitive encounter. Meaning does not settle fully formed but flickers—brushing past, lingering beneath the skin in moments that are tangible and visceral. The work breathes through the body, becoming a shared space where material carries weight and temperature, speaking its own quiet truth. To touch the surface is to be touched in return—a dialogue of presence and resonance.

In her sculptures, the viewer’s attention is initially drawn to the figures, rendered in realistic colours that anchor the scene in human presence. In her paintings, however, vibrant architectural screens of light and shadow take centre stage, while figures recede, inviting mystery and contemplation. This dynamic inversion allows structure, colour and atmosphere to unfold narratives both subtle and profound.

Yasmin approaches her paintings as sculptural vessels—forms that hold and reveal flesh, ground and space. Her palette, drawn from her Zoroastrian heritage, evokes elemental forces: red-orange hues speak to fire and transformation, while green-blue tones whisper of growth and memory. These colours become emotional and spatial anchors, tracing the architecture of selfhood—layered, shifting, marked by time.

Across both sculpture and painting, Yasmin’s practice is guided by a quiet enquiry into how we inhabit space—physically, emotionally, culturally. The conversation between mediums is fluid and cyclical: painting informs sculpture, which folds back into painting, each echoing and expanding the other. Together, they articulate a spatial poetics of identity—layered, mutable, vulnerable and resilient.

Concept stages

My making methods involve testing concepts with paper models.
Hand-crafted concept maquette by Yasmin Watts, made from recycled materials, reflecting her sustainable artistic practice.

My making methods involve testing concepts with paper models.

Initial hand sketches by Yasmin Watts, capturing spatial and conceptual ideas that guide her creative process.
Hand-crafted concept maquette by Yasmin Watts, made from recycled materials, reflecting her sustainable artistic practice.
Through digital design, Yasmin Watts breathes life into her concept sketches, unfolding them into expansive sculptural forms that blend imagination and precision.
Through digital design, Yasmin Watts breathes life into her concept sketches, unfolding them into expansive sculptural forms that blend imagination and precision.
Clay sculptures of people using mobile phones, displayed on wooden bases and platforms.
A cardboard art piece in the shape of a human head and face, mounted on a white foam board, with various tools and supplies in the background.
Sculpture in progress of two young girls on a staircase, with one sitting on a step and the other standing at the bottom, in a workshop setting.
Painting of three people sitting on benches inside a building with large windows, and a person standing in a doorway, with varied lighting and shadows.
Painting of two people, one standing and one lying on the ground, positioned in front of a vibrant green structure with geometric lines, set against an orange background.

Paintings

Yasmin’s paintings offer a profound extension of her sculptural vision, bridging the dimensionality of her three-dimensional works with a more intimate two-dimensional expression. These paintings present a complementary layer to her exploration of nature, the human form and the interplay of emotional and physical realms.

While sculpture remains the core of her practice, the paintings offer a more direct, fluid approach to the organic forms, movement and emotional resonance that define her three-dimensional work. The abstract shapes within these paintings evoke both fluidity and tension, mirroring the dynamic balance found in her sculptures. Through the interplay of bold lines, textured surfaces and a varied colour palette—from earthy tones to vibrant hues—her paintings invite the viewer into a realm of depth, offering an emotional dialogue akin to the tactile experience of her sculptural forms.

Space plays a central role in these works, much as it does in her installations. The compositions provoke a sense of transformation or motion, urging viewers to contemplate the relationship between the figures and their surrounding space. This inquiry mirrors her sculptural investigations into how form and space influence human experience. Through this dialogue, Yasmin’s paintings create a seamless extension of her ongoing exploration of identity, embodiment, and the silent architecture that binds the body to its environment.

A person in a camouflage jacket standing in front of an abstract mural featuring orange geometric structures and green framework.
An abstract painting depicting a modern interior with multi-colored glass walls, wooden beams, and two figures, one standing and looking at a phone, and another visible through the glass.
A boy with a hoodie looking at a geometric, colorful abstract sculpture made of interconnected red, blue, and green shapes inside a room.
Painting of two children playing near a small shed with large green leaves framing the scene, red background wall.
Interior of a modern building with colorful walls and shadows of two people, one standing near the wall and the other sitting on the ground.

Sculpting process

Clay sculpture of three seated people in a studio with sketches on the wall behind them.
Line drawing of a man sitting on a ledge or bench, smiling, with hands clasped together, wearing a jacket, pants, and sneakers, on graph paper background.
Sketch of three women sitting, viewed from different angles, with a grid background.
Sketch of two men dressed in suits standing on a grid.
Clay sculpture of a girl sitting cross-legged on a wooden base
A bronze statue of a man standing with a confident posture, looking upward with hands in his pockets, dressed in a suit with a casual jacket, on a wooden base.

Sculpted figures captured from life models in pencil sketches, sculpted in clay and wax, cast in jesmonite and plaster and hand-painted.

Sequence of images showing the evolution of a sculpted figure: sketch studies, clay sculpture, 3D scan, and a painted sculpture of a seated child.

Evolutions of a sculpted figure from sketch studies, sculpting in clay, 3D scan of sculpted figure to change scale and proportion, cast and hand-painted completed figure.