NEW YORK, NY.- Building on Marcin Rusak’s debut solo presentation with the gallery in Paris in 2023, Vas Florum: Resina Botanica digs deeper into the evocative power of plants by representing memories of people, places, and the feelings that emerge from those encounters.

Rusak’s Vas Florum series develops unique floral compositions into a contemporary herbarium; the works conjure individual memories from the artist’s lived history while also stimulating universal, collective memory. In each artwork, flowers are embedded in the body of the form itself, and the species chosen range from those that have been artificially bred for commercial, aesthetic purposes, to common ‘weeds’ that are often overlooked yet can thrive in the most inhospitable conditions.

Using natural waste material is particularly important to the artist. Conceived as ‘time capsules,’ each sculpture ontologically considers the concept of the vessel and its relationship with flowers and their display. Rusak reclaims plants that have fulfilled their commercial use, manipulating and enhancing them through various techniques and processes developed over the years in his studio. Rusak extends their lifecycle and gives their ephemerality renewed purpose.

The exhibition includes a new body of work that debuts at Carpenters Workshop Gallery New York, and that foreruns an upcoming Marcin Rusak retrospective scheduled for October 2024 at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in Ladbroke Hall, London.

Resina Botanica, a new iteration of the studio’s flagship Flora series, acts as a portal into the immense influence nature has on Rusak’s creations. The shapes of the cast bronze tables were inspired by stone slabs found in the riverbed of the Solina River in Southern Poland. Juxtaposed with unique floral compositions cast in dark green and rust-hued resin, the pieces evoke whirlpools of water, thus inviting the viewer to delve deep into the alchemy of materials, the intricacy of the creative process, and the natural phenomena that inform them.

Marcin Rusak’s presentation with the Carpenters Workshop Gallery marks the artist’s first solo show in New York City since 2017.

Marcin Rusak (born in 1987, Warsaw, Poland) is an artist and multidisciplinary designer interested in ideas of value, ephemerality and aesthetics. Specializing in storytelling, process and material investigation his work often incorporates research, object and installation as well as visual creations to explore overlooked details of our lives which recreated and re-imagined are shown again in a different light.

As the son and grandson of flower growers he has long been fascinated by these natural sources of inspiration and decoration. Engaging them in his creative process began by reusing waste to investigate new decorative elements within everyday objects and led to a rich body of work ranging from research and storytelling to cultural criticism around consumption and future scenarios.