HCA NEWS The Woman with the Eggs in Bronze

Danish sculptor Stine Ring Hansen creates a bronze sculptor that draws inspiration from one of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales.

By Camilla Jensen - H.C. Andersen 2005 - 03 March 2004

In connection with the 2005 bicentenary of the birth of Hans Christian Andersen, Danish sculptor Stine Ring Hansen is currently working on 20 bronze sculptures based on some of Hans Christian Andersen's most famous fairytales.

The challenge for Stine Ring Hansen is to represent the essence of each fairytale in a single character. 'The Woman with the Eggs' is in Stine Ring Hansen's rendition represented by a little girl carrying a giant egg in her open arms.

"The egg symbolises the dream. You always envision 'The Woman with the Eggs' carrying a tray of eggs, but that's too obvious. Naturally, the fairytale should simply be represented by a single egg. It's the dream that is important, not the number of eggs," says Stine Ring Hansen to the Copenhagen edition of the national daily Jyllands Posten.

Stine Ring Hansen's sculptures are featured many different places in Denmark. She has, for instance, decorated the police station in Lyngby, the Ballerup Shopping Centre, the Nursing School in Slagelse and the main high street in Rødby Havn.

On the subject of her vision in art in the public space, Stine Ring Hansen says to Jyllands Posten: Zest for life "The most important thing for me is that people sense the zest for life. Provocative art is a trend, but I believe that people have had enough of destructive things - we are bombarded with them all the time.

In my experience, people crave for aesthetic things that are food for the soul." Stine Ring Hansen's work draws inspiration from nature. Birds are recurrent features of the sculptor's organic universe. With its egg-motif, 'The Woman with the Eggs' is the first of Stine Ring Hansen's 20 Hans Christian Andersen inspired sculptures. Stine Ring Hansen hopes to sell a two-metre version of 'The Woman with the Eggs' to the Danish egg producer Danæg.

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