GETTING TO KNOW:
MONIKA PATUSZYNSKA
from the series TransForms Plus | Bernese stories, 2015-2016 | porcelain, 75 cm | photo: Olga Grabiwoda
How would you introduce yourself to the Cluster readers?
Artist, designer, and curator, explorer of abandoned spaces and untried paths.
Member of the International Academy of Ceramics.
How did you get here on your creative journey?
As always, thanks to a series of cases and curiosity,
of course (laughs).
from the series Genealogy | on adjusting (2019) | porcelain & parian ware, h. 60 cm, 40 cm
from the series Genealogy | How white the white is? (2019) | porcelain & parian ware, h. 45cm, 55cm, 50 cm
What drew you to ceramics?
A feeling that making ceramics combines all kinds
of activities - thinking, analysing, experimenting and,
on top of it, physical effort.
from the series Genealogy/ on the difficult art of maintaing a balance (2019), porcelain & parian ware, h. 30-45 cm
Tell us about the work you submitted…
The latest works are about crossing the borders of what ceramics is believed to be,
the borders of good taste and my own superstitions. I tell stories about relationships, memory,
and assembling fragments into complex constructions. The objects feature familiar elements
stripped of their functions, arranged into new configurations and given a completely new role to play.
My artworks are collages of elements borrowed from everyday life
and my own experience gained while working in new places and cultures.
photo: Grzegorz Stadnik
How would you describe your creative style
and way of working?
For years I’ve been exploring how far the limits of slip casting can be pushed,
as my main partner in crime I have chosen porcelain.
I usually work on solid blocks of plaster and found plaster moulds which
I modify by sawing, smashing, and breaking them into pieces, then,
after they are reassembled, I cast the void inside, sometimes adding bits
and pieces cast from other moulds and manipulating the cast itself. The process
of breaking up and reassembling the broken pieces allows me to define
the object again, deprives it of its earlier designed character, and gives it a new,
different meaning.
Key words to define your forms?
#materialdriven
from the series Genealogy | Triangulation (2013-19)| porcelain & parian ware, h. 40-45 cm
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
The morning light and the sound of sparrows chirping outside the window both make me feel
that I might miss out on something.
from the Genealogy series | on relations (2019) | porcelain & parian ware, h. 25- 33 cm
from the Debris series | 2017, Shangyu Tales | porcelain, l: 41 cm |
in the collection of Shangyu Ceramic Arts Center, Shangyu, China
Social media and you: the good,
the bad and the ugly. Tell us all…
A never ending conflict between a dream of being loved
for simply who you are and a temptation to manicure an image
of a better self to pass the test of the collective imagination.
Well, I am mature enough to remember how the paper and ink could bear anything and to know that smartphone screens
and their keyboards can take even more.
Who are your idols?
Most of my idols have lost their golden gilding already.
I am much more interested in the material itself
and my own relationship with the materials I use.
from the Debris series | 2017, Shangyu Tales | porcelain, l: 44 cm |
private collection, Jingdezhen, China
from the series Genealogy III | 2019 | porcelain, engobe, h. 15- 35 cm
What’s on your creative calendar for the near future?
I am working on the final show of the Genealogy tour - a project about different types
of relationships translated into the language of materials. It is a story about combining similar and dissimilar,
matching and mismatching transferred to objects, a project about marrying different aesthetic,
material, technological or cultural DNAs. It is all about adjusting, about mismatching, and the difficult art
of maintaining a balance. The show is planned for Autumn.
I am also waiting to see what the pandemic brings this year; I’ve been invited as one of the exhibitors
at Clay Gulgong in Australia. I really miss travelling out of Europe these days.
from the Genealogy series | not kintsugi (2020) | porcelain, parian ware; h. 30 cm, 50 cm, 40 cm
Personal motto/mantra?
Keep questioning.
Tips, tricks and secrets for making it in the art world?
Literally none! I even have no bloody idea how I’ve managed
to get where I am now (laughs). Well... Never fake what you do
and keep questioning everything all the time… oh wait…
doesn’t it rather sound like a simple recipe to go crazy???
photo: Monika Patuszynska
Thank you for reading,
Valeria, Daniel & Cluster Team.
You can find Monika also on:
Instagram & her website