PIOTR MICHNIKOWSKI

“I work in many threads, on the border of various techniques and arts. I am mainly interested in deepened feeling and non-verbal reflection, which remains in the sphere inaccessible to rational analysis, but is vividly present: the one in which a person can only find himself, but cannot create it. I am curious about all aspects of human existence as an extraordinary fact. In art, I am not interested in provocation or opposing anything. Instead, I prefer to search for universal references and inner peace.

I have dreamt of sculpting since I was a child. When I was 6 years old I decided to become a sculptor . I remember looking in awe at the photos of the Veit Stoss altar in the album my grandmother had. Every time I was at her place, browsing through these photos, it made me want to look at them on and on. Making things out of plasticine was one of my favourite activities. I had manual skills and it gave me great joy when I managed to create something.

I was lucky to meet excellent and very interesting professors. I started studies at the Faculty of Industrial Design. In those days I held a belief that art should be useful and serve people. Around the second year of studies, I realized that the profession had no future in Poland at that time, in the 1980s. At most, I could go to some factory and make excellent designs that would never be implemented. What’s more, the lecturers talked about it plainly.

At the Industrial Design faculty we had sculpture classes with prof. Krystian Jarnuszkiewicz, whose brother Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz ran a studio at the sculpture faculty, that inspired me and two of my friends to change our minds. A natural consequence was the decision to change the department. There were so many great lecturers and artists around. To me it was a great luck to attend the sculpture studio run by prof. Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz. I remember studying there very well, although I was probably not the easiest student. It was an opening to the world, to unconventional, avant-garde, modern art, although undoubtedly respecting history and tradition.

When someone asks what inspires me, my answer is: everything. Life is a  fascinating event and a remarkable fact. And we often forget about this miracle by focusing on hardships that occur in life. It is absolutely amazing that a handful of different elements have come together to compose something that can speak, think, feel and belong to me. Inspiration can be found literally everywhere. Someone’s look on the street, a smile, an event, not necessarily dramatic. You have to look, observe, keep your eyes, ears and mind open. Remembering that if we didn’t exist, none of this would exist. Because in fact, inspiration comes from within us.

I perceive light around me in normal, everyday situations. That was never my view that an artist has to be unhappy to create a good piece of art. It’s a stereotype. I respect it, but it’s not mine. I prefer to enjoy, emphasize it and give it. I want people to have cool, nice and good experiences when they come into contact with my art.

If a person is really sincere in what they do, the recipient can feel it, see it and appreciates it. This is something I was brought up with.