Nilay Carlson
My sculptural work is rooted in deep collaboration with nature. I spend countless hours wandering the woods, gathering materials - moss, leaves, sticks, sap, bones - each processed and held until the moment they reveal their place. I am deeply committed to working with natural materials and strive to minimize the use of chemicals, allowing the forest itself to breath life into my creations.
The creatures formed from these materials are guardians of the wilderness, born from Gaia herself. Each carries the quite power of their own story and the memory of the profound transformation, inviting viewers into a world of myth, memory and connection.
My work honour the unseen roots that bind us to the land and the cycles that shape us.
He Who Carries the Storm
Dimensions: 35" x 17" x 19" (89 cm x 43 cm x 48 cm)
Year: 2021-2025
Materials: Fur, deer antler, fish bone, raffia, sawdust, driftwood, leather, eagle feather, gold leaf, wire, wood, bonding agent, seed, wool, pigment.
About the Work:
He Who carries the Storm is a warrior born of the sky. His wooden beak is honed by the souls he has taken. Crowned with deer antlers-ancient symbol of strength and knowing-he watches with eyes that tell stories: one lost in battle and the other one is pierced with seed-encoded future-holding all that is yet to come.
Two eagle feathers rest on his shoulders, whispering of high flight and unseen realms. Nestled in the hollow of his throat, a delicate white cloud floats-silent, pure, and charged. It holds his vision, the calm eye within the storm.
This figure does not unleash the chaos, but temples it.
Portfolio
SCULPTURES
She Who Wears the Wild Flame
Dimensions: 33" x 16" x 22" (84 cm x 41 cm x 56 cm)
Year: 2015-2025
Materials: Salmon skin, fur, dog teeth, salmon jaw bone, possibly rodent skull, seashell fragment, Golden Buprestid beetle, peacock feather, granite, driftwood, root, wool, plant strands, yarn, hemp rope, bonding agent.
About the Work:
She Who Wears the Wild Flame is one of the figure series shaped by time and tide. Her form is assembled from driftwood, fur, bone, thread, and salmon skin — each element found, held, and eventually called into place. A single peacock feather crowns her — a quiet symbol of fierce beauty, vision, and the unspoken feminine. She wears a jaw made from salmon bone, and long strands of plant material adorned with dog teeth — tokens of ancient strength, protection, and perhaps something primal within. She holds the presence of a shaman — untamed and powerful. Like her sibling sculpture, He Who Carries the Storm, she is a guardian with healing powers. But where he holds the winds, she wears the flame. As well as she could she could clears, transforms, and reveals, she could also destruct when necessary.
She Who Rises Beneath the Antler Moon
Dimensions: 27 1/2" x 21" x 17" (70 cm x 53 cm x 43 cm)
Year: 2021-2025
Materials: Elk antler, bald eagle chest bone and furcula, my own hair, deer rib cage bones, rooster tail feathers, monkey tree leaves, leather, brass wire, metal rod, burl, ball chain, paint, bonding agent, polymer clay, monofilament line (fishing line).
About the Work:
She sits in stillness, suspended in the hush between earth and sky. Made of long strands of human hair, her body remembers her roots — not as place, but as a feeling, as a return. Her arms are deer ribs, her back an eagle’s breastbone — wings once carried by air, now anchoring her in presence. From her crown rises a U-shaped arc of eagle bone — like antlers, like crescent moon, like a portal through which vision flows. Rooster feathers fall through her hair, a tapestry of light and shadow, marking the threshold between sleep and wake. At either side of her head, four monkey tree spines become ornaments — like leaves once sharpened by wind and time.
She holds the silence of prayer, the posture of devotion, the gaze of inner seeing. A hollow at her brow — her third eye — opens toward what is beyond.
Suspended upon a burl, an elk antler arches behind her like a guardian curve.
Sheltered by ancient arms, she reaches toward the sky.
She is the flame that does not flicker.
She is stillness that speaks.
She is the space between breath — where worlds touch.
Torrweka — She who awakens with the torrent
Dimensions: 20" x 20" x 24" (51 cm x 51 cm x 61 cm)
Year: 2017-2025
Materials: Deer antler and bone, bird skull and wings, Douglas fir cone, possibly fisher fur, calcareous tubes, rope, yarn, glitter, wire, cement, ball chain, cloth, polymer clay, bonding agent, pigment, spray paint.
About the Work:
Long before words could capture her, Torrweka rose from the wild pulse of earth and sky — a living surge of power, fierce and fluid.
Born of rushing waters and restless winds, she moves with the force of a torrent, unstoppable yet deeply aware. Her eyes hold the watchfulness of one who is always awake, sensing the hidden currents beneath stillness.
She commands the wild flow of nature, a sentinel standing at the threshold where quiet strength and raw energy converge.
Torrweka reminds us that true power is alive — not loud, but ever vigilant, ever moving. She is the restless river that carves new paths, the awakened spirit guiding us through shadows and light.
Carved from deer antlers and partial skull, woven with eagle feathers and driftwood antlers, she sits upon fur-lined earth, encircled by a rising tail — a boundary of wild grace.
Truth of Chthonia
Dimensions: 16 1/2" x 25" x 19" (42 cm x 63,5 cm x 48 cm)
Year: 2021-2025
Materials: Sawdust, human hair (my own), ash, deer antler, butterfly, monkey tree leaves, mushroom, gold leaves, wire, cement, bonding agents, pigment.
About the Work:
A woman rises from earth where she belongs. Antler legs clutch the wisdom of a shadowed past, breaking through sacred mud. Gold leaves shimmer around a hollow womb of new life. Her lower body armoured with monkey tree leaves- sharp, ancient, and alive.
Her face is fungal relic, a keeper of the forest's forgotten stories. A butterfly rests on her shoulder-fragile witness to transformation.
She tears through soil, not to escape it, but become it- truth blooming in dirt and light.
It Who Slithers Between Worlds
Dimensions: 37" x 15" x 20" (94 cm x 38 cm x 51 cm)
Year: 2021-2025
Materials: Moose fur, deer bone, salmon bone, fur, unknown animal bone and claw, cocoon, bird wing, gold leaf, wire, bonding agent, wire, wool, branch, pigment, cement, polymer clay.