For me, art is a source of joy.

Whether through experiencing it, or creating it.

Art enriches our lives, renews the spirit, and in a larger sense, the spirit of ‘humanity’ as well. It brings us into contact with the thoughts of others, transporting us into different ‘worlds,’ awakening us to experience, to emotion.

And that is what is important to me.

I feel fortunate to have discovered a passion for sculpture. My interest in the medium has been with me since childhood, and in some sense, the art I create today has its roots there. I create ‘playful worlds’ which, I hope, will carry my viewers into a bizarre yet fascinating universe.

The often concealed figures of animals, which play supporting roles in the images I choose, allow me to create my own world of art. That they are animals is in a sense a charade: each conceals a particular charm, a secret, an intriguing dynamic, or a static aesthetic. For humans, animals are less obviously intelligible than figures representing human counterparts. Although they may seem merely ‘playful,’ these animal are for me abstract metaphors that generate emotion, atmosphere, but are less ‘transparent’ than human forms.

The motifs I use and investigate (from paintings, predominantly from the 15th –18th centuries) are for me like ‘theatrical stages,’ often slightly artificial, posed, they harmonize marvelously with their ‘actors.’ This allows me to extract my protagonists and to present them in my own ‘dramatic performances.’ In the process, the motifs are defamiliarized, abstracted, and interpreted. These pictorial motifs appear to me as ‘tableaux vivant,’ and the figures I create using them as a basis are so to speak ‘frozen.’ Detached, isolated, left alone.
They are ‘bearers’ of the moods of these images, but are intended to generate completely new, unique atmospheres. An ‘ideal’ object. An ‘ideal’ world. Utopia.

On the one hand, an aesthetic phenomenon that entices and attracts; on the other, one that refuses possession: through a certain ‘strangeness’ and a sense of vulnerability, my works remain excluded, unattainable, autonomous.

Like the autonomy of art – and of the artist.

It has been said of my work – and I have to agree – that it belongs to a utopian realm of art. My objects are exaggerated, playful, pushed to the limit, at the very boundary of tastefulness. At times, they unsettle viewers, raising questions of ‘good taste.’ Is this what one calls ‘good’? Does this art lack ‘profundity’?

And it is my intention is to pose such questions.

The objects are direct, they often arouse unfiltered emotions, the kind that remain beneath the surface of adult consciousness: the joy of a child, the yearning for a world of fairytales. Something that glitters, seduces, and disturbs, but also ‘deceives.’

All the same, we often long for such a ‘simple’ world. Or we are annoyed by the directness of these figures because as serious observers of art, we feel we haven’t been taken seriously enough.

Absurd figures, absurd art.

I enjoy being a witness to their creation.

Marta Klonowska