Jozef Sękowski, Slavic Cleopatra
Steel, jute
Work signed, UNIQUE.
Dimensions: 148 x 63 x 40 cm
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As the artist himself notes, the Slavicness of this Cleopatra is expressed in the material used (jute) and the proportions of her body. Professor Jozef Marek - in an album - the catalog of the occasional exhibition, published on the occasion of the author's 75th birthday - points out the "shocking" composition of two materials, extreme to each other, working together in one body of a work of metaphorical symbolism.
"I admire the surprising otherness of the materiality of these sculptures - the closest to the Author's imagination and his otherness of memory of studies from nature, found in the world of distant and close sculptural creativity. For me, the "Slavic Cleopatra" is the Wawel Venus, and the famous Venus of Willendorf is her prehistoric great-grandmother." (Prof. Joseph Marek)
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Jozef Sêkowski - graduated with honors from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow in 1966, where he remained as a research and teaching employee for many years. In 1995 he was awarded the title of full professor. In 1978-2002, he served as dean of the Faculty of Sculpture. From 2002- 2005 he served as pro-rector of the Academy of Fine Arts.
Many recognized contemporary artists grew up under his wings, among them Mariola Wawrzusiak - a sculptor appreciated at home and abroad, current lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow.
About the artist's work, Józef Murzyn said: "Rich imagination and skill in creating syntheses, abbreviations and formal metaphors eminently served the artist in building an original grammar of his sculptural formulations. It allowed him to penetrate without restraint his cultural affiliations and roots, ambitions and complexes, attachments and habits brought from his native environment, in which he was born and grew up, which defined the framework of his dynamically constituting worldview."
Józef Sękowski is counted among the most outstanding Polish sculptors. His work is held in high esteem in Poland - to mention his highly awarded monuments (Stanislaw Wyspianski in Biecz or Rafal Czerwiakowski in Cracow) - and the world. The artist participates in the most important exhibitions and his works are in public and private collections in Poland, France, USA, Sweden and Germany.
