A STUDY 003 / Piece 02

Playfulness has a way of keeping things open in Ali Shah Gallefoss’ work. An idea may begin in one place and find its purpose somewhere else entirely.For A STUDY 003, it led him back to a stone sculpture he had made for a solo exhibition in 2025, and to the drill marks left across its surface. What had been part of making one work became the starting point for another.

Rather than approaching the project with a finished object in mind, Gallefoss returned to something that had caught his curiosity and began there. The drill marks became moulds for molten pewter, their rigid geometry producing casts that were precise in places and unruly in others. He made many, testing different arrangements, allowing the peculiarities of the metal to guide what came next.

The hooks emerged somewhere along the way. It is characteristic of Gallefoss’ practice: function is not always the premise, but something that can be discovered through making. The resulting objects retain something of that search. Part stone, part metal, part intention, and part accident, they make a case for leaving an idea open long enough to become something you had not thought to look for.