In chess, the king is the central figure, crucial for victory and survival; protecting the king is what drives all strategic maneuvers. At the same time, the king may be one of the weakest pieces when it comes to movement abilities.
It’s this contrast between vital importance and helpless neediness that makes the king a fascinating figure to study.
While exploring more organic shapes for the traditional pawns, it felt almost inevitable to Amer to examine how a natural organism would morph into this abstract likeness of an emperor. A fully grown tree has an indisputable sublimity.
Working the wood, laboring out the forms of the Transmorphic Chess king was also a process of balancing artistic ambition and awe for authentic growth and uniqueness in nature.
text © 2024 Jeltje Anna Schmidt