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"Dear
Malgorzata, I am sure that your wonderfull
and romantic sculptures give a lot of
pleasure and happiness to many people."
Dr. Hans Guggenheim |
Małgorzata
Swolkień
Ms Małgorzata Swolkień graduated
from the Faculty of Sculpture of the Akademy
of Fine Arts in Kraków, where she studied
ceramics; she has been working with this
material umil the present. In her works,
admirable for the special combination of
painterly shapes and fantastic colours,
Ms Swolkień has been using natural ceramic
clay and glaze. Man introduced into architecture,
man and animals, or woman and floral motives
are the subjects of the lyrical works, which
are striking as far as composition is concerned.
The frequent use of metaphors results in
the images filled with the deep-rooted thoughts
of the artist, which one simply cannot disregard.
The multitude of the themes is an evidence
of Ms Swolkień's rich imagination; the associations
are so striking that it is difficult to
say whether these ceramic works are created
to serve Rowers, or perhaps flowers are
made for the ceramic female characters.
The ceramic sculptures as the display of
the flowers orfruit are the evidence of
the fact that the artist is sensitive to
the ideas of interior design and garden
arrangement. The early stage of Malgorzata
Swolkień's work is characterised by the
one-figure compositions, whereas later on,
in the course of the artistic development,
the artist becomes more interested in the
manyfigure ones. The subject is dealt with
in different compositional variants and
one can observe the way she combines the
multitude of reflections into one woof.
To Ms Swolkień, the ability to render the
emotions in ceramics supplemented with colour
is a very personal artistic statement. The
soft and tender moulding of the figures,
as well as the group compositions; the passage
from the sublime nature to the roughness
of blocks, which constitute the spatial
architectural phenomena, all make Ms Swolkień's
artistic way. Since 1993 Ms Swolkień has
been a member of the art group called Pasja
(Passion), which consists of three paintresses
and a sculptress. As the four artists refer
to themselves, they are connected with the
passion for life and creation. They organise
both individual and group exhibitions. I
think that Małgorzata Swolkień solves her
artistic problems in the calm of her studio
where the anxietyof waiting for the results
of her work, right before opening the ceramic
furnace, must always be overpowering. In
her exhibitions, Małgorzata Swolkień mostly
shows her favourite birds of paradise, the
children, the maids, the women, the whole
families and, certainly, the flower pots.
I should like to plant my own flower of
admiration in one of Ms Swolkień ¶ pots
- a symbol of my admiration for her wondrous
vision.
prof. Bronisław Chromy -
review
Lyruc ceramik works
by Ms. Małgorzata Swolkień
The art of ceramics has always
been close to sculpture, and the colour
has always tempted artists to use this specific
raw material. It has been this way from
the moment when people acquired the art
of shaping and firing ceramic objects.
Whilst studying sculpture at the Academy
of Fine Arts, Małgorzata Swolkień had an
option to choose sculptural techniques.
She decided to focus on ceramics. She believed
the ceramics offered her the most wide-ranging
potential to create and construct her artistic
visions. Her ceramic art possesses all the
features of sculpture, but in a smaller
format. She arranges the space, and clarity
of the composition speaks of the form, and
the context by way of the form.
Joie de vivre, friendliness to people and
animals emanates from her ceramic works.
While using a fired glaze, she tries to
tone it up, to search for adequate colour
schemes other than those imposed by technology;
she deliberately selects them to match compositional
concepts. In particular, it is very interesting
how the Artist merges ceramics and animated
nature. Ladies wearing ceramic hats have,
for example, flowers growing out of them,
and local grasses form the hair of smiling
children figures. Generally, an artistic
creator is not always able to entirely complete
each of their projects, because its own
laws rule the ceramics. However, it is basically
possible to control this specific 'adventure'
with glaze, which may produce very interesting
final results, and Mrs. Małgorzata Swolkień
is a perfectionist in this domain. The compositions
of this Artist represent a secret, closed
world of poetry and fairy-tales; they catch
the eye and fascinate. With regard to the
synthesis of the form, distant analogies
could be made with the paintings of Modilgiani,
Makowski, or Chagall. They prove the Artist's
openness to contemporary art. She knows
how to expertly select any necessary means
that might appear useful and valuable in
her private explorations and discoveries.
By this creative approach to the Art, an
exclusive language of fine arts is generated.
The Małgorzata Swolkień's artistic works
are the art of a colourful spatial arrangement
around the human being and for the human
being. These ceramic sculptures can fulfil
various functions both inside and outside
any apartment or house. They can be arranged
with flowers, or they can stand freely,
on their own, to enhance an environment
by the poetry of pure, inspiring form. This
artistic production is completely original,
and ceramic sculpture created by this Artist
is unique, it combines various worlds and
elements according to the Artist's temperament
and life energy.
prof. Stanisław Batruch
- review
Małgorzata Swolkień
Małgorzata Swolkień is a sculptress, who
"betrayed" classical materials:
she was the only one in her year at university
graduating with a diploma in ceramics. And
it stayed that way.
When she had completed her studies, in the
mid-seventies, sculptors were trained to
create public sculptures, either cast in
bronze or carved out of stone and the crowning
achievement at that time was an erection
of a monument. The choice of ceramics as
a means to make art (and a living) excluded
that possibility from the very beginning,
since heroic individuals and saints, history
and modern times are not usually honoured
with ceramic monuments. Instead of developing
the grand city space with her works, Małgorzata
Swolkień started to arrange private space,
make use of the commonness. She created
sculptures which acquired functional features
while still possessing all the fundamental
qualities of the medium. Her low reliefs,
described by many as ceramic paintings,
can be set in the wall of a building. The
composition of her sculptures, however,
allows for changing them into small gardens.
In the times when the language of sculpture
had not included (at least in Poland) the
concept of interactivity, the young artist
had proposed interference in form, addition
of colours. The figures' heads were (and
are) often cut above the forehead and hollowed
out: it is possible to sow chives or plant
roses inside - everything is a matter of
needs, sensitivity and imagination. A veil
of ivy can grow out of an empty hat of a
lady; in a saxophone of a playing angel,
violets can be planted... Each time it is
the "user" who introduces new
elements and colours to the sculpture. Is
it risky if we take into consideration spatial
and colouristic imagination of fellow countrymen?
Of course. But what an adventure!
For Małgorzata Swolkień colour is very important
and it is much more sophisticated than it
usually happens in case of ceramic sculpture.
Even today, when good quality glaze in a
full range of colours is available, the
works of a Cracow artist strike with their
painterly quality. Those specific 'adventures'
with colours and nuances are the effect
of making one's life hard in the stages
of a sculpture creation. What is more, there
is always a moment of uncertainty present.
Ceramic sculpture emerges from the earth,
water and fire. Elements can be analysed
and recognized and their effect - to some
extent - can be predicted, but it is still
rather impossible to fully control them.
It is a kind of a daily poker.
The sources of Małgorzata Swolkień's new
passion, namely that of glass painting,
could be found, in fact, in the need to
predict colours.
The aesthetics of all Swolkień's works -
sculptures, low reliefs, two-dimensional
paintings on glass - refers to the classical
style, according to which beauty means proportions
and harmony of the parts constituting the
whole. The artist herself adds humour to
her works, which, similarly to her skills,
becomes more and more evident in time.
Jolanta Antecka
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