Sculpture is arguably one of the most interactive forms of art. There is infinite potential in a sculpture, and no two artists approach the medium alike.

The way that sculptures fill and command space is different for each artist. To really understand the art of sculpture, you should view many different ones from separate artists. While you are starting to develop your own tastes and opinions about your favorite sculptures, there are a few particular sculptures that you should be interested in.

1. My Heart Is All a Flutter

David Kracov’s artworks are formed by small, individual butterflies. On their own, the butterflies are just a colorful representation of the insect, but when combined into the sculpture, they form the shape of a heart, which almost seems to be expanding as the butterflies radiate out from the center.

Kracov is vague with what the sculpture means and represents to him, emphasising the importance of what the viewer thinks. When you look at a sculpture, you imagine what the artist might have been feeling and intending when they made the work, which is just as real as what the artist themself was feeling.

2. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

This sculpture by Damien Hirst is shocking to look at. It is a shark suspended in a glass tank filled with a preservative formaldehyde mixture. It is an experiment with the idea of hyperreality and hyperrealism in art. It represents the way we think about death.

The shark is meant to shock people who are in a gallery. It looks almost like it is still alive, and could be threatening, so that elicits a kind of fear in the viewer. The shark is placed so that you can walk around the entire tank, and are made to think about life and death.

3. Expansion

Paige Bradley began by making a sculpture of a woman sitting in the lotus position with her face tilted up and her hands raised. Then, she dropped it, letting it shatter on the floor. Bradley then pieced the sculpture back together, and added a light inside of it so that it would shine through the cracks where the sculpture had fallen apart.

The sculpture is about disconnecting from your worldly attachments and becoming someone different. It’s about being able to find yourself when everything else falls away.

4. The Black Ghost

This sculpture, created by artists Svajunas Jurkus and Sergejus Plotnikovas, depicts a figure wearing a cloak and holding a lantern aloft as he climbs out of the water and onto a pier. The image of this man is startling and haunting, hanging half above and half below the walkway.

While the sculpture looks almost threatening, the story that it is inspired by is anything but that. The legend says that a similar figure crawled out of the water and warned the people living in the town that they did not have enough wood and grain stored for the winter. The people then gathered more, and were able to get through the winter because of the extra supplies they stockpiled.

5. Venus

Jeff Koons is a somewhat controversial artist because he does not create his own art. Rather, he directs a team of 100 artists to execute his vision. His statue, Venus, is a contemporary imitation of the art created of the ancient Roman goddess of beauty, Venus.

Koons works with reflective surfaces, which act as mirrors that bend around the contortions of the statue’s features. This makes it so that the viewer sees themselves in the art and must contemplate their own involvement and captivation with their own image.