Ewa Wawrzyniak was born in Poland and trained in ceramics and glass at Middlesex Polytechnic and Surrey Institute of Art and Design in the UK. She completed her Master of Arts at the national College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland, where her research explored the technical and expressive possibilities of sand casting glass.

Ewa’s work is inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s book ‘The Poetics of Space’ and is dealing with the perceptions of a house as a ‘private space’. Always container, sometimes contained, the house serves in her work as the portal to metaphors of imagination. We need houses in order to dream, in order to imagine. These dreamscape sculptures are about vulnerability and protection. She is exploring here how we experience intimate places and to what extent our memories and experiences from childhood influence our need for this ‘dream place’. The symbols she uses are very personal and therefore more intuitive than logical. The ‘streets’ are journeys towards a safe place. Every ‘street’ represents a different atmosphere, creates a different environment and reflects a mood or expectation to be found upon reaching the ‘dream house’.

The method she used to create her work is called sand - casting. It is a technique involving pouring hot glass into a mould made out of special, damp casting sand. It is a fast, free and immediate method of working with glass, requiring a significant physical and energetic involvement of the creator. Ewa have selected this method to create her pieces as it permits a free and unrestricted expression of an idea.

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