Mira Podmanická: Landscapes (sculptural travelogue)
The Landscape series presents the latest works by Mira Podmanická, with which the author began last year. The series of works organically builds on the author's previous works and at the same time differs from them, and thus declares the need to think about the author's work in new contexts.
Curator: Lucia Miklošková
Location: Gallery X, Zámočnícka 5, Bratislava
The conceptual style of Mira Podmanická is characterized by precise work with the material. The materials she usually works with are not classically sculptural, strong and durable, but on the contrary soft and pliable and often predispose the work to extinction (paper, porcelain, textiles, gypsum, dry plants). In the case of the current series, the material selection works in reverse logic. The author uses residual (waste) material, intended for extinction, which she enhances by transformation. At a time when the issues of ecology and the climate crisis are resonating more urgently than ever before, such a strategy may seem to be the starting point for artistic production. Podmanická does not calculate with the recycling strategy, she does not make the content of the work out of it and her approach is based more on her natural attitude and creativity.
Another feature of Podmanická's style is the encryption of personal statements into (form and at the same time content) works. In her work, the author is directly working with herself and her own experiences. But even that does not make them the primary theme of the works. Content points to form and at the same time, form to content. The subman's works are visually appealing and formally elaborated, and in them the viewer can read transversely, insert their own interpretations and at the same time curiously reveal the original codes of the author.
In previous works, Podmanická referred to personal experiences when she recorded floor plans or the internal arrangement of the spaces she lived in or the places she visited. What the author is interested in is the question of the construction of space and the dynamics of relations between individual spatial constellations. She perceives this question in correlation with her own corporeality. The Landscapes series features places visited in the past - the Japanese landscape, the Georgian mountain, the Argentine highlands, or glaciers. The places that the series reconstructs are more of an abstract image than a literal transcript, representing more a return to the essence or origin of the (non-spatial) memory trace. While the first objects are precisely layered by the material, in the later years the author relaxes more, plays more boldly with the material and deliberately creates imperfect structures (for example with empty spaces).
Mira Podmanická works as an assistant professor at the Department of Sculpture, Object and Installation at the Academy of Fine Arts and Desing in Bratislava. She completed her master's and doctoral studies at the AFAD (at the studio of doc. J. Hoffstädter, academic sculptor). In addition to her sculptural work, she specializes in ceramics and, marginally, jewelery. While her sculptural work is characterized by the packaging of volume, design realizations and jewelry are characterized by the casting of "living" forms (real, not modeled things - such as chocolate or flowers).
Supported from public sources
