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Raul De Lara’s Sculptures Ask What Separates Raw Material, Medium and Meaning

For his latest collaboration with Hermès, the Mexican artist brings his whimsical wood sculptures into the world of luxury craftsmanship, exploring the relationship between nature, production and the objects that accompany our lives.

The earliest forms of human creation transformed natural elements into objects endowed with symbolic meaning. Today, some artists still use ancient modes of production like woodcarving to consider the relationship between human making and nature. Mexican-born, Queens-based artist Raul De Lara is one of them, having chosen wood as his medium and carving as his practice early on. His sculptures intentionally inhabit the fluid space between furniture, sculpture and architecture, with wood serving as a living material capable of taking different forms. Some of those forms can be seen in the windows of Hermès Madison Avenue maison, where De Lara has created a fully imaginative environment, bringing together sculptural objects, retail products, architecture and urban references. Titled “The Secret Lives of Objects,” the whimsical installation brings together some of the “silent roommates” that adorn our homes and help define our sense of place and identity.

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When we caught up after the installation’s unveiling, De Lara explained that his recent work has moved beyond the individual sculptural object toward a more expansive consideration of how objects relate to one another and to the materials surrounding them. His recent solo exhibitions have all exemplified this approach, even as galleries continue to ask for individual pieces, which can feel decontextualized. “I think that’s something I’ve definitely been exploring over the years in my work,” he told Observer. “It’s not often I get a chance to create a world, but it’s where my practice is leaning into.”

This is not the first time De Lara has collaborated with the brand. In 2023, he created a sculptural window installation for the opening of its Aspen boutique, staging an environment inhabited by a rocking cactus, a carved chair, a large oak leaf and anthropomorphic garden tools. Rather than treating the commission as a commercial departure from his artistic practice, he sees it as an opportunity to explore how his sculptural language expands into architecture, the urban environment and the world of luxury craftsmanship.

A key factor in De Lara’s approach to art-making is the imaginative exercise of anthropomorphizing ordinary objects to reveal their inner lives. Guiding his practice is a fundamental question: when does a piece of........

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