Teresa Murak
(b Kielczewice, nr Lublin, 5 July 1949). Polish sculptor and conceptual artist. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, from 1971 to 1976. Her works Procession (1974), featuring sowings of motherwort on a suit of clothes, Cradle (1975), on the flat of the hand, and on a 70 m Easter tapestry or carpet for the church in her native Kielczewice (1974), are meditative in character and draw on the fundamental laws of nature and the elements, the life-giving qualities of water and the transformational power of the sun's light. Sculpture for the Earth (1974; Ubbenboga, Sweden) contains a hemisphere hollowed out in the earth, juxtaposed with a hemispherical mound. Negative and positive are reiterated in cross-section by graphic Yin and Yang symbols. In the next Sculpture for the Earth (begun 1976) a simple geometric quadrilateral encloses the source of a river; two of its sides pass into the side of a mountain, while the other two form a clay wall. The essence of Intermediate Space (1986) is the muddiness of the form-creating material (water and earth), the movements of the palm of the hand above it, the action of the light that dries and crystallizes the form while drawing it from the darkness and making it visible. After 1986 Murak worked with bread leavens mixed with earth (e.g. Longing, Doing, Vigilance), compositions that illustrate the relationship between grain, earth and water. The process of natural growth and ripening is connected with the full range of human activity towards nature and the shaped form, as is shown in Crater (1987; Lillehammer, Bys Malerisaml.).
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