NEW YORK — London-based Polish artist Marcin Rusak’s Flora Noir at Twenty-First Gallery (New York, May 12 – June 16, 2017) — his first exhibition stateside — beautifully captures the essence of the natural world suspending hand-picked and discarded petals in resin bound by shellac.
The son and grandson of flower growers, Trendland writes Rusak has long been inspired by the beauty and subtlety of nature.
Celebrating the organic in his creative process began by reusing waste to investigate new decorative elements within everyday objects and led to a robust oeuvre ranging from research and storytelling to cultural criticism around consumption.
Like three-dimensional transmutations of flat pressed flowers, Rusak’s resin vessels and panels serve as inquiry into value, consumption and industry methods of manipulation.
In his pursuit of authenticity, Marcin creates work that asks questions, references history and proposes possible future scenarios. Utilizing the power of materials, volume and form he moves fluidly from decorative art objects to sculptures, two dimensional work and back again each time with a story as his guide.
Detail.
Detail.
From the artist’s bio:
Marcin has a background in both humanities (BA from European Studies from University of Warsaw) and art programmes such as Man and Living at the conceptual Eindhoven Design Academy, Netherlands as well as receiving an MA in Design Products from London’s Royal College of Arts. Recently Marcin has been awarded the Perrier-Jouët Arts Salon Prize for emerging artists. He has exhibited at group shows including “What is Luxury?” at the V&A, Design Miami/Basel, London, Milan and Dubai design fairs. Recently he had his first solo show at the Contemporary Applied Arts gallery in London.
All images courtesy of Marcin Rusak Studio.
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