Marcin Rusak | Flora Noir
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Overview
Marcin Rusak’s solo exhibition in New York, Flora Noir, presents eleven unique pieces from his Flora series.
From the ancient Egyptians’ abstracted lotus to the iconic designs of William Morris, it is apparent that the appeal of floral imagery is timeless. Rusak’s Flora collection iterates upon this human impulse to incorporate the natural world in decoration by preserving, rather than representing, floral forms.
In suspending floral and vegetal matter within black resin, he allows the material to retain its authentic and genuine qualities. Rusak has developed two methods, which he calls Flora Perma and Flora Temporaria. Flora Temporaria produces a surface in which the flowers are completely submerged and the resin reflects an intriguing depth. Flora Perma machines the surface length-wise, resulting in fascinating cross-sections of flowers. These unique surfaces sit atop sculpted aluminum and bronze table bases. While the complex and detailed surface mesmerizes, recalling 17th century Flemish still life paintings, the overall piece remains grounded in its form’s simplicity.
Rusak’s work conveys a respect and admiration for nature, allowing the natural world to reveal its beauty in its own way. In this sense, he represents a new generation of conscious creators, seeking to explore creative methods that expand our awareness of materials’ origin, future, and inherent beauty.
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ARTWORKS
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Featured Artist
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Marcin Rusak
Marcin Rusak was born in 1987 in Warsaw, Poland. He holds undergraduate degrees in humanities from the University of Warsaw and in art from the Eindhoven Design Academy in the Netherlands, as well as an MA in Design Products from London’s Royal College of Arts. He currently works out of London and Warsaw. With an experimental practice that merges contemporary art and design, Rusak draws inspiration from theoretical research and philosophical inquiry as well as from explorations of material processes in the studio. Influenced by his family lineage as a third generation descendant of flower growers after his father and grandfather, he has developed signature techniques using plant flora as a striking decorative element within his work, preserving flowers and leaves in resin which are fused seamlessly into his thoughtful modern pieces. Each piece is unique, conserving the ephemeral shades and textures of petals and leaves, which float suspended in beautiful contrast with the smooth white, black or clear resin encasing them. Rusak is also adept at creating minimal designs in metal, carving materials to their bare elements to create elegant, rugged forms. In addition to his exquisite design furniture, Rusak produces artworks on silk using colorful flower pigmentation, resulting in simple and delicate pieces marked by bright natural abstract formations. Still in the emerging phase of his career, Rusak is already the recipient of numerous industry awards including the Mazda Design Award, the Architectural Digest Design Award, the Wallpaper Design Award, and the Perrier-Jouet Arts Salon Prize, among others. He was recently selected as a part of #AD100. He has held solo exhibitions at Twenty First Gallery in New York as well as at galleries in London, Miami, and Brussels. His work has also appeared in a number of group exhibitions at prestigious venues in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, including the V&A London, the London Design Festival, Design Miami Basel, Design Days Dubai, and Japan’s Toyama Museum of Art and Design.
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