Marta Klonowska's exhibition 'Glass Menagerie' at the Ursynów Cultural Centre 'Alternatywy' is the first show of the sculptor's work in Warsaw.

The analogy with the title of the play by Tennessee Williams is not coincidental. It is not only about the name and the material of which the figures are made, but also about the relationships that are generated between the characters. The Menagerie can be described as both the peculiar glass animals that Laura (the play's protagonist) collects and the equally fragile and inaccessible characters of the drama who hurt each other. They are a collection of people who, like the sculptor's works, ooze with their colours and memories, but can also hurt and wound. Neither one nor the other can be tamed; they are at once mysterious and awe-inspiring, but at the same time dangerous and icy.

Marta Klonowska creates her objects from pieces of glass 'waste'. From hundreds of cut-up fragments, she 'paints' intricate and precise sculptures inspired by paintings by Rubens, Snyders and Wegener, among others. However, these are not realistic recreations of animal motifs. She creates spectacular objects from two-dimensional painting originals, which acquire additional meanings and associations thanks to the artist's imagination and the properties of the material from which they are made. From background artists, they become jewels, soloists, transformed into separate individual entities. In addition to works that have already been exhibited abroad, we can see her latest sculpture 'Partridge', inspired by Józef Chełmoński's painting 'Partridges' (1891), at the exhibition.

Marta Klonowska was born in Warsaw in 1964. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław (1987-1989) and Düsseldorf.

An opening with the artist will take place on 6 June at 8pm.
Exhibition open until 30 August.