how small…..how vast…..

The technique of sand casting offers the artist an immediate, fast, free method of working with glass. It involves pouring hot glass into a mould made out of special, damp casting sand, requiring a significant physical and energetic involvement of the creator.

The childlike ‘play’ in sand evident in the spontaneity of the work, invites the viewer into a poetical space. Contrasting the allure of the miniature with the vastness on inner space opened up within the glass, the artist conjures a private world of the imagination. Freedom and boundless space are consciously pitched against intimate and controlled structures on a condensed scale.

Her work begins with the perception of the house as a ‘private space’. Always container, sometimes contained, the house serves as a portal to metaphors of the imagination. We need houses in order to dream, in order to imagine. These dreamscape sculptures are about vulnerability and protection. Ewa explores how we experience intimate places and to what extent memories and childhood experiences influence our need for this ‘dream place’. The symbols used are personal and intuitive. ‘Streets’ are journeys towards the safe place, each environment reflecting a mood or expectation to be found upon reaching the ‘dream house’.

Ewa Wawrzyniak
Shadows, 2005
42cmX16cm
Sand cast glass, ground & polished