Upon entering the exhibition space of ‘Kawałki Barw’ (‘Pieces of Colour’), we are transported into the realm of an artistic experiment, where the boundaries between effects typical of painting and textures typical of sculpture are blurred. Fascinated by the exceptional properties of ceramic glaze and possibilities offered by shaping clay, then hardened at high temperatures, Piotr Michnikowski has been developing his unorthodox approach for years. The result combines painting with sculpture in the form of a ceramic relief.
JL: I read in your interviews that you dreamed about making sculptures since you were a child. Can you recall any specific moments or experiences that spurred this dream?
PM: My entire childhood was filled with art and conversations about it. My father was a great actor, my mother had a degree in art history. At our house, we had loads of interesting books and albums about art. We often visited galleries and museums. Summer holidays were spent travelling and sightseeing. It’s hard for me to pinpoint an exact moment in which I chose sculpture, but I always knew I would be an artist – although I do remember a good impression left by the album with photographs of the Altarpiece by Wit Stwosz. Perhaps this is the reason…
JL: Is there any particular work of art that appears instantly in your mind when you look back at those early days?
PM: Once, I sculpted a horse using clay I dug out myself during summer vacations in Świder. These were my first attempts so I didn’t really know how to approach this. I tried to make its legs out of sticks. These were the first steps I took. Another time, I made a whole zoo out of plasticine. My family was crazy about it.
JL: In reference to your statement about ubiquitous inspiration for your work, is there any specific discipline that provides you with the most powerful inspiration?
PM: Definitely music. I have my own process and work the best while listening to jazz, and I mean an old-fashioned kind, such as gypsy or paris jazz – although I do also enjoy jazz ballads, the classics, and contemporary experiments. It all depends on the mood. I compose music and make instruments myself. Oftentimes, they are actually sculptures that make sound, and not music tools. I am fascinated by the nature of sound, its origin and influence on people. My dream is for my visual artworks to stimulate the senses just like music does.
“My works are intended to be a mirror in which the recipient can see themselves every day, just as I see myself in them while creating. Art is a message, not so much of thoughts, but of subtle emotions and sensations that often go unnoticed by us, are ignored, and yet, they are the ones that actually make our world. This world.”
JL: Are those sounds more experimental in nature?
PM: Yes, “an instrument” is just a working title. Despite my experience in repairing actual musical instruments, my works border on sculpture. Most likely, you wouldn’t be able to play a specific melody on them. Sure, they make sounds, but primarily they tell a story about the properties of the material from which they are made. I like it when the material goes hand in hand with the message of a piece. In my opinion, that is what an artist should aspire to.
JL: The subject of music is very interesting, especially considering the fact that it blends with sculpture and literature in your practice. Could you please tell us something more about working across different mediums?
PM: First and foremost, it comes from within. I write songs and lyrics, compose music, and sing, though not professionally. Recently, I’ve started writing a book, and many people have told me it seems to be going well. I enjoy playing with language. However, it belongs to another discipline. Sculpture goes beyond language. If you can articulate something with words, then why would you sculpt it? Writing is much easier in this regard. In principle, sculpture and visual arts have nothing to do with language – they convey non-linguistic meaning. It is a specific kind of language. Please note that music works in a similar fashion. Music and sound touch a person literally because the mechanical weave crashes against our eardrums, resonating directly with our bodies. Sculpture is also a haptic experience. You need to touch the material to create it, struggle with it a little bit. I love touching it, feeling it, and getting familiar with the texture, structure, or shape. These are the things you feel, not necessarily define. You don’t need to anyway.
JL: That is a fascinating point from the artist’s perspective. Perhaps it depends on the person, but generally, artists don’t like explaining what they created because, in this process, they often experience things that are essentially intangible. It’s interesting how these elements, which you’ve mentioned, blend together. All the disciplines have something different to convey. What is your approach to speaking about your artistic practice? Would you say that the reliefs stand on their own or are complemented by their titles?
PM: I think the title might offer some direction for a viewer, but I wouldn’t take it too seriously. In my opinion, everyone is able to respond to artwork differently because everyone is different and has a right to feel what only they feel. This name or title is a pretext, sometimes a pun or provocation. For me, those titles have lives of their own. I care for the viewer to have a direct interaction with my work. Ceramic reliefs have an extremely unique quality: their reception depends on lighting – on the time of day in which one is taking them in, the light source. For this reason, their colours can differ immensely. And so, the title might refer to only one of those ways of seeing. It’s nice to hear when someone gives my work their title. Then, it has a chance to live its own life.
JL: Could you please explain the origins of your original technique involved in creating ceramic reliefs? How did you come up with it, and how does it allow you to express your sensibility?
PM: It’s a strictly ceramic technique. However, I view myself as a sculptor, not a ceramicist, who uses ceramic elements to express himself. I believe that an artist is not just someone who can skillfully piece something together or emulate. It’s a person who has something to tell and uses various tools to this very end. Ceramics are used all over the world. Actually, the approach of every studio is at least a bit different. In my case, it originates from a fascination with the process, especially the fact that it’s based on the material that comes from the earth, namely clay, which can be soft provided that you process it correctly. In nature, it assumes several forms, more often as a rock, not a malleable mass that you can shape as you wish, and then subject it to this amazing process. At first, you leave it to dry, best to do it in the sun. Then, you burn it at a very high temperature – a symbolic passage through fire, if you will. This thing that used to be soft thanks to water can now be turned into a bowl to retain water, hold it inside in a way, but in a completely different sense. It sounds almost symbolic and poetic, filled with life, the power of creation, shaping character… All this process is enthralling and immersive. It’s also fun for me to colour the clay in various ways. You can cover it with layers of clay, engobe, or glaze. You can achieve different textures and hues. I was looking for my own colours and textures while taking the polychrome of sculpture as my starting point. Your typical shiny glaze didn’t fit with my intention. I experimented with various ingredients to arrive at the matte or satin finish by trial and error. I did it all by myself because I didn’t have much to do with ceramics at the academy – so I started doing experiments on my own, sometimes with bonkers results. In this process, I became fascinated with the fact that ceramics could create mixed and coincidental juxtapositions, these astonishing painterly effects, so I decided to focus more just on colour and approach this as painting. All this took years to bring results because these experiments were plentiful, for instance, I adopted different burning methods, discovered new components or types of clay during my travels.
JL: This whole experimental process is very interesting. I am wondering about the meaning of ceramics, which tends to be associated with applied art, whereas your work leans more towards the aesthetic. Through your experiments, you alter this context of functionality.
PM: I try not to concern myself too much with thinking about the decorative and functional qualities of ceramics. It’s easy to think yourself into a corner – it’s the domain of ceramicists, artisans, whom I respect very much. I want to go beyond this schema and say something more. About the world, about life, about beauty. I want to convey a deeper message, encourage reflection, meditation, and raise questions in a comfortable situation of interacting with art.
JL: Do you ever experience a lack of inspiration to create? How can you overcome this type of block?
PM: I never experience a lack of inspiration myself. For me, the element that provides me with a constant source of inspiration is nature. I love being out in nature. It’s important to be mindful of the life that surrounds us and is given to us – temporarily in this shape and form. It’s worth looking up at the sky sometimes, going into the woods or to the lake, taking time to reflect and see how amazing it all is, realising that you can see and experience it all. Basically, inspiration never ends. That is until we are alive and open to experiences.
JL: You mentioned the polychromy of sculpture and the fact that you feel like a sculptor, not a ceramicist. Your exhibition ‘Kawałki Barw’ (‘Pieces of Colour’) also featured a few spatial works. Are you going to continue creating sculptures and installations?
PM: Of course! The goal of this exhibition was to present the incredible potential of reliefs, but it’s just one of the many areas of my activity. I intend to tap into this experience while creating three-dimensional forms. I’ve worked extensively with different materials, including bronze, steel, and wood. Once, I even cast small bronze sculptures using the lost-wax technique and experimented with combining bronze with ceramics; the results were very interesting. Now, it’s time to take a step further and develop these concepts with the use of the amazing possibilities offered by the nature of ceramic material: its deep hues, malleability, even sound and resonance, as well as brittleness mixed with hardness, durability, and the preciousness of metal, its construction potential, and sonority.
“Life sometimes falls into pieces. The only thing you can do about it is put it back together. And, in fact, maybe the whole thing is always made up of different pieces that don’t always fit together. Nothing is perfect, although everything is.”
JL: So again, something between painting, ceramics, sculpture, and music?
PM: From an official standpoint, I suppose it is. However, as I mentioned before, I want to create more meaningful works. I want to look deeper and further, make people think, ponder, pay attention, and realise that there is something more than a constant problem-solving race – perhaps even encourage them to look inwards, look for the meaning of life, experience things, and not seek out concrete answers, feel the silence inside, impenetrable by the waffle of media or even their own thoughts.
JL: You speak of the future. If and when will we have a chance to meet again at another show to admire your upcoming works?
PM: Some of them are ready. They were exhibited as small forms that will be transformed into large-scale pieces. I don’t have a specific date right now. Plans are elaborate and ambitious since I am preparing for exhibitions abroad, on different continents even. I received proposals from Austria, Italy, London, and the US. I dream about Japan, though, because that’s where the RAKU technique comes from, and I enjoy using it very much.
Interviewed by Julia Lakhiani
“I work in many threads, on the border of various techniques and arts. I am mainly interested in a deepened feeling and non-verbal reflection that remains in the sphere inaccessible to rational analysis but is vividly present — the one in which a person can only find himself but cannot create it. I am curious about all aspects of human existence as an extraordinary fact. In art, I am not interested in provocation or opposing anything. Instead, I prefer to search for universal references and inner peace.”
Piotr Michnikowski
He graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and obtained his diploma from the Faculty of Sculpture in 1985. He is the creator of bronze and ceramic sculptures, as well as original musical instruments and installations. One of his characteristic and unique projects is a series of ceramic reliefs utilising the painterly nature of glaze. He works with his own techniques and recipes, developed over many years of experimenting. In addition to sculpture, he is also involved in music and writing.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Individual exhibitions:
- 1992 – Haus am See, Hanover
- 1995 – Ceramics and Sculpture, BRAMA Gallery, Warsaw
- 1996 – Ceramics and Colour, BRAMA Gallery, Warsaw
- 1996 – Ceramics and Sound, Gallery of the District Centre for the Promotion of Culture Praga-Południe, Warsaw
- 2000 – Painting and Sculpture, BRAMA Gallery, Warsaw
- 2000 – Sculpture and Ceramics, BORKA Gallery – Sentimental Place, Warsaw
- 2001 – Exhibition “Paintings and Pictures Painted with Glaze,” BRAMA Gallery, Warsaw
- 2001 – Sculpture, Zapiecek Gallery, Warsaw
- 2002 – Sculpture, Poniatówka Gallery, Błonie
- 2003 – Sculpture, “Sybase” headquarters, Warsaw
- 2003 – Exhibition “Variations on the Horse Theme”, Zakrzów
- 2005 – Exhibition “Sculpture with Music”, Zapiecek Gallery, Warsaw
- 2017 – Exhibition of paintings and sculptures, Za Regałami Gallery, Leszno
- 2021 – Exhibition of paintings and sculptures, GPS Online Gallery
- 2022 – Exhibition of paintings and sculptures, Willa Toscana, Warsaw
- 2023 – Exhibition “Pieces of Colours” – ceramic reliefs and sculpture, PROM Kultury, Warsaw
Group Exhibitions:
- 1994 – Exhibition “Ceramics – Structures, Meanings”, Centre of Polish Sculpture, Orońsko
- 2004 – Exhibition “Horse Workshops”, Zakrzów
- 2005 – Twenty Years Later, DAP Gallery, Warsaw
- 2019 – Exhibition “PLEXUS”, Imaginarium Gallery, Łódź
- 2020-2022 – a series of exhibitions of paintings and sculptures, SOPRA Gallery
