Kira Freije works with metal, fabric, light, and found materials to create sculptural figures that occupy the in-between — scenes glimpsed in passing, caught in a state of becoming or seeking guidance. Her practice draws on a range of processes including welding, casting, and glassblowing, and her sculptures bear the visible marks of their own making. Using welded steel cages to form torsos and limbs, and cast aluminium faces, hands, and feet—often taken directly from friends and family—Freije embeds a sense of intimacy into each work, cementing personal connection in permanent form.
Her figures, often caught mid-gesture or mid-thought, seem to seek guidance, look upward or outward, or engage silently with one another. Cast faces convey a range of human emotions—grief, serenity, anxiety—acting as deeply expressive portraits of vulnerability and shared humanity. Freije creates narrative portraits that speak not just to individual identity but to collective emotional states that evoke themes of displacement, uncertainty, and faith in the unseen.
Kira Freije (b. 1985, London) lives and works in London.