Wanda Gillespie
Wanda Gillespie — 'Oo' Sculptural Abacus, 2025
In recent years, Wanda Gillespie has come to view the abacus as a powerful metaphor for our contemporary era - a moment of reckoning. While traditionally used for counting, its frame now takes the form of a strange, mystical alphabet-echoing the secret languages of sages and mystics throughout history. The beads, once simple markers of value, retain their dual function as tools of devotion, recalling the prayer beads of various spiritual traditions.
The abacus, from its origins in Mesopotamia to its later forms in Asia and Eastern Europe, speaks to humanity’s perennial impulse to quantify and order the world. Through this work, Wanda invites us to consider how symbols-whether in prayer, scripture, or cipher-hold the power to bridge the seen and unseen, the earthly and the divine.
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Wanda Gillespie is a contemporary artist known for her interactive abacus sculptures and wood-carved figurative works. Drawing inspiration from ancient artifacts and nature’s mathematical perfection, her practice explores themes of history, time, truth, and spirituality. Her abacus sculptures, which investigate the intersection of value and the sacred, are a central focus of her work.
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Of Counting and Devotion: Wanda Gillespie
Vitrine
March 6 - April 26 2025
In Of Counting and Devotion, Wanda reaffirms the abacus not just as a tool for calculation, but as a system for encoding hidden knowledge. At the heart of the exhibition, The Sage emerges as a hand-carved face formed from a local burl. He is the orchestrator, weaving meaning from numbers and symbols, a master of hidden knowledge and sacred patterns. Draped in strands of prayer beads of varying sizes, he embodies contemplation and mystery, measuring the immeasurable and guiding us toward deeper reflection.
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Material: Blackbutt wood, walnut, brass, reclaimed soroban abacus beads
Dimensions: approx. 41.5h x 27.5w x 3.2d cm
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