Marcin Rusak’s botanical light objects at Carwan Gallery
photo credit George Sfakianakis
WHAT: Marcin Rusak to debut a series of new botanical lighting objects.
Carwan Gallery presents Protoplasting Nature, a new lighting collection by Polish artist and designer Marcin Rusak. Inspired by the beauty and impermanence of plants, these unique sculptural objects combine metal and botanical elements, in an exploration of timelessness and transformation. Marcin Rusak is known for his innovative work with plants and the way he uses them to create thought-provoking design objects. Born in a family of floriculturists, Rusak has developed an artistic practice that is oriented around the
ideas of ephemerality, decay, preservation and consumption.
In his singular work, he uses science (such as industrial manufacturing or biology) in combination with the fragile beauty of plants and flowers to achieve a poetic result. In Protoplasting Nature, Rusak combines metal and exotic leaves to make opposing processes — life and death, renewal and decay — evident. A load-bearing structure, formed by hand using welded steel, evokes organic shapes and ornate 17th-century furnishings. In place of a lampshade, Rusak attaches real leaves from the exotic plant Thaumatococcus Daniellii, a rhizomatic herb widely cultivated in central Africa for its exceptionally sweet fruit and useful leaves. The entire sculpture is then coated in zinc using a process of nebulization, thus permanently encasing the leaves within a thin metal shell.
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- Photo: George Sfakianakis
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- photo credit George Sfakianakis
Protoplasting Nature is an exclusive project commissioned by Carwan Gallery and is a collaboration with IN Residence, a contemporary design research residency in Turin, Italy. The project is also illustrated in a monographic publication curated by Barbara Brondi and Marco Rainò, published by NERO Editions in 2020.
WHEN: Until February 27th, 2021
WHERE: Carwan Gallery, Polydefkous 39, Piraeus, Tel:+30 210 4114536
