Herma de Wit-Orobio de Castro's artistic works encompass bronze sculptures, objects, drawings, etchings and monotypes, which serve as striking reflections of her profound connection with nature. She gets inspiration during her many travels around the world from which she always takes flora back home.
Within the isolated fragments of flora she explores the delicate balance between fragility and strength present in the natural world. In her recent creations, this exploration takes a more abstract form, with rhythm playing a significant role. The isolated fragments undergo a graphical abstraction, transforming into subdued forms that transcend ordinary perception.
De Wit-Orobio de Castro fearlessly challenges artistic boundaries. In both her monotypes and bronze sculptures, strength and fragility are played off against each other. The vulnerable thin Japanese paper is in perfect balance with the fragments of fossil flora, imprinted onto the paper with considerable compressive force. The bronze sculptures incorporate fitted pieces of fossilized flora, wherein the unyielding, rock-hard bronze serves as a bearer for these delicate fossils, maintaining a flawless equilibrium in the tension they evoke.
De Wit-Orobio de Castro studied fashion design, both at a technical school and at the Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam and started her artistic career working as a fashion designer in Paris, Milan and Antwerp before heading her own high-end label from Amsterdam. Since 1999 she focusses solely on her profession as a fine artist. She works alternately in her studios in the Betuwe and in Amsterdam.
The artist has had three books of her work published; ‘Herma de Wit-Orobio de Castro, Sculptures and Drawings’ (2019), 'FORCE OF NATURE’ (2021) and ‘Essence of Nature’ (2023).
All books are included in the collection of the Rijksmuseum library, Amsterdam.
Her recent monotypes and bronze sculptures have been acquired in private collections in the USA.