marcin rusak - perishable vases

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MARCIN RUSAK

Perishable Vases

Waste flowers, shellac, tree resins, beeswax, flour

Perishable Vase IV, 32H x 40 x 28 cm - 2016

Perishable Vase III, 32H x 26 x 26 cm - 2015

Perishable Vase II - Decaying, 32 H x 40 x 28 cm - 2014

Unique pieces

Photo credit/ Marcin Rusak

The idea of reconnecting to the place I am from and the origins of my work have become quite apparent in the past few years. When the family history of over 100 years of flower growers in central Warsaw ended with my birth, I felt there was nothing of a grower in myself.

What I remember from growing up in my family home surrounded by abandoned glass houses is mostly their textured and rough industrial materiality and the presence of disappearance and decay at every step I took while constantly exploring their ghostly landscapes - glass, dry air, warmth, rust, zinc planters, pipes, machines, pumps, and multiple structures of unknown functionality. Filled with archeological like discoveries, they remained quiet and empty but almost opulent in their multiple traces of living elements from bacteria, to weeds and dry soil evident in every metal container.

Glass houses, where the life and growth of nature is controlled, became synonymous with a personal history intertwined with the impermanent nature of the material world and memories alike.

Decaying and ageing materials have an important place in my practice. I develop them from organic ingredients in order to create objects that have en element of life on their own. Perishable Vases were created as a paradox to examine the way that we value things around us. We surround ourselves with

objects of use, which become irrelevant to us at certain point, but we are stuck with their materiality. Creating something with an aesthetic and emotional value with the constant reality that it might not last forever creates this almost uncomfortable notion of wanting to preserve it no matter what. It creates a nonphysical relation which lasts while/if we consciously maintain it. It is the objects we value that will outgrow the everyday and become representatives of our times.

Marcin Rusak