CARL COLLISON
Setting out to comment on “how dissociated the human condition has become from nature and the wild”, sculptor Stanislaw Trzebinski has created a body of work titled, The Coral Series.
One of the collection’s central pieces, The Weightless Embrace, will be on show at the Church Street-based Jan Royce gallery’s Focus exhibition.
Says Stanislaw: “The piece features two female figures entwined together, abstracted and adorned with coral and organic forms and shapes, which impress an overall sense of movement. The entire series is a commentary of how the human condition, society and especially the younger generation, have lost the primal bond we once had with the natural world. The less time we – and especially children – spend in nature, the less we understand and identify with it.”
The Kenyan-born Gardens resident draws inspiration from his childhood in East Africa, which saw him spending “time equally divided between the bush and the sea”.
“By grafting textures from coral, shale, rock and organic shapes onto a human anatomy stripped bare of its outer layers, I mesh the tissue of human and organic form making them one, in the hope that this illustrates our interconnectedness and the symbiotic relationship that we actually share with the things around us.”
As to what drew him to pursue a career in art, Stanislaw says: “It was really during my time in high school that I realised that, for the most part, I had strong enough a talent and also a solid foundation from which to pursue a career in the arts.”
As many artists would attest, the realisation of this dream is, however, not the easiest of processes.
Says Stanislaw: “As a young artist I struggled to find my voice. It’s not easy without guidance. You see, my work features detailed and anatomically correct figurative subjects which I struggled to perfect in the beginning. It’s something that I will continually try to improve on; it’s an ongoing process.”
* The exhibition, Focus, will run at the Jan Royce Gallery, 64 Church Street, from Saturday April 23 to Saturday April 30. For more information, call 082 566 9625.
