Their form is intended to evoke positive emotions. The light sculptures designed by Michal Korchowiec were created out of a need to master loneliness. They have already found their way into homes and private collections around the world. The latest collection of sculptures will be presented at the Venice Design Fair in October 2024.
The idea to design the objects came about three years ago during a pandemic. At the time, the artist was spending a lot of time alone in his studio flat. He glanced out over the city, the terraces, the dormant city life. Wanting to enliven the space around him, he recalled Iceland and the polar nights. He began to create light objects that gave not only a sense of warmth, but also of presence.
I like to gaze at my lights, at their breath. I’m fascinated by their transformation, how they come alive when dusk falls and their beautiful interior fills with a rainbow gradient of colours. Only they balance out the black. My grey painting. Their light began to accompany me, to look after me and somehow slowly allowed me to believe that I was enough (…),” says Korchowiec.
The light sculptures were designed using modules. They consist of multiple glass elements that colour the light and change the colour of the sculpture. In the new collection, the objects have been fitted with a larger disk, which allows large spheres to be mounted and significantly enlarge the object. Each can be used in a number of ways. The sculpture can be expanded, changed, personalised. There are already several thousand combinations.
My light sculptures don’t just look completely different when they light up the darkness alone and when the sun’s rays fall on them. They undergo a natural process of transformation, determined by the rhythm of day and night. They surprise us by achieving unique colour compositions, even though they are illuminated by a single, ordinary white light bulb. These effects are made possible precisely by the author’s filter,” adds the artist.
Michał Korchowiec has recently been working on objects in which the light would be coloured with all the basic colours, painting a rainbow gradient in the object. This is how the latest light sculptures SE.1 and SE.2 came into being. SE.1 energises with a rainbow contrast of colours, while the all-pink daytime SE.2, thanks to a filter after dark, turns from a monochromatic composition into a sunny gradient, surrounding its surroundings with warmth. It is the objects you look at that make their presence felt and evoke emotion.
Michal Korchowiec is an interdisciplinary artist. Painting, video-art, visual arts, set design, costume and light design, and documentary film are just a few of the disciplines in which he creates. His art is used to express emotions, but also to tell stories – his own, his family’s, as well as those heard, mentioned by friends over coffee or random-not-accidental visitors to his studio. Korchowiec is a sensitive listener, a collector of details of reality – seemingly insignificant details that linger in the memory for a long time to blossom over time. He does not work from references, he does not look for inspiration. He survives, experiences and shares this with others. He exhibits his work in renowned galleries at home and abroad. Winner of the “Must Have 2022”. Theatre set designer, co-creator of, among others, Monika Strzępka and Paweł Demirski’s productions “Nie-boska komedia”, “W imię Jakuba S.”, “Courtney Love”; Wiktor Rubin and Jola Janiczak’s “Sprawa Gorgonowej” or Jacek Poniedziałek’s “Kto się boi Virginia Woolf”.
source: Michał Korchowiec
photos: Jan Świetlik
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