Filip Sawczuk

What makes someone become an artist? It’s a hard life, generally. My first day at art school, we were told that only two per cent of artists make a living from their art, and that we should prepare ourselves for a career in hairdressing or floristry. Actually, most of my peers seemed to end up in IT. I got kicked out for excessive drinking and, of course, became a writer.

Still, the question remains: why?

In the case of sculptor Filip Sawczuk – exhibiting at the MRA Gallery until the 22nd of this month – there seems to have been a particular, decisive moment: “I am a painter decorator by trade and have been working in construction for the last seven years. We had some work to do at the Powerhouse Museum and while painting inside I came across something incredible. I froze for a second when I saw it. It was Marc Newson’s Lockheed Lounge.

“From that moment I just wanted to create something.”

It’s not that simple, of course. Growing up in the industrial city of Lotz in Communist Poland, Sawczuk lived next to an old train station in which he and the other neighbourhood kids used to play. “We used to go through the parked carriages and old deserted train workshops. I have always been fascinated with all the parts and scrap metal with different shapes laying around.” The influence of those early days can be seen in his sculpture On Time, one of 18 pieces featured in the exhibition.

Steampunk, the science fiction sub-genre whereby modern technology is re-imagined in nineteenth century, steam-powered terms, would also seem to be an influence, though in fact Sawczuk wasn’t aware of it until after he’d begun exhibiting his work.

After his encounter with Lockheed Lounge, Sawczuk set about restoring old lamps, stripping them back and polishing them to bring out the colours of the metal. He then began constructing his own lamps out of odd bits of scrap: antique hair dryers, stage lights, engine parts and so on. Finally, two years ago, he started making purely aesthetic creations. Art for its own sake.

Even now, though, Sawczuk seems slightly anxious about his status as an artist. He needn’t be. Ostensibly the grafting of a (I think) carburettor onto a hand drill, a piece such as Off-Road is far more than the sum of its parts, seeming almost like an artefact from some strange parallel universe. These re-imaginings are the epitome of creative abstraction and really stir the viewer’s imagination as well. Afterwards, you might even find yourself inspired to create something yourself.

Filip Sawczuk at the MRA Gallery
76 Mitchell Road, Alexandria
9–22 February 2012