Yasmin Watts’ creative process blends handcraft with digital techniques, fusing tradition and innovation. She begins with physical sketches and concept models made from paper and recycled cardboard, which she then translates into large-scale, textured environments using digital tools—drawing on her architectural background. These maquettes allow her to test ideas on a smaller scale, fine-tuning spatial relationships to ensure that the final piece retains both intimacy and emotional depth.
The sculpted figures within these environments are developed from sketches, clay and wax sculptures and traditional casting methods. Yasmin’s exploration of human connection to space is central to her practice, investigating how architecture shapes emotions and behaviour. Her work delves into the complex interplay between body and environment, with each gesture framed by architectural contexts that prompt engagement and reflection.
Material choice is fundamental to her practice. The textures and forms she selects evoke a sense of presence, with stable and recycled materials like metal and wood contrasting with the fluidity of human gesture. Yasmin also experiments with unconventional materials, pushing the boundaries of texture, emotion and sensory interaction.
In her sculptures, the viewer’s attention is initially drawn to the figures, rendered in realistic colours that anchor the scene in a human presence. In her paintings, however, vibrant architectural screens of light and shadow take centre stage, while figures recede, creating a sense of mystery. This inversion of dynamic allows the interplay of structure, colour and atmosphere to evoke a distinct narrative.
Yasmin approaches her paintings as sculptural surfaces—vessels that both contain and reveal form, flesh and ground. Her palette, drawn from her Zoroastrian heritage, evokes the elemental: red-orange tones speak to fire and transformation; green-blue to growth and memory. Through these colours and forms, her paintings serve as emotional and spatial anchors, revealing the architecture of the self—layered, shifting, and marked by time.
In her work, sculpture and painting engage in a dynamic dialogue—each medium complementing and extending the other. Together, they invite viewers to explore the complexities of human presence, the layered narratives of identity and the emotional resonance embedded in both physical and metaphorical spaces.
Concept stages
My making methods involve testing concepts with paper models.
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.
Sculpting process
Sculpted figures captured from life models in pencil sketches, sculpted in clay and wax, cast in jesmonite and plaster and hand-painted.
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.