Festival of Art in Public Spaces

Vlodko Kaufmann

Teresa Murak (born in 1949, Kielczewice in Lublin region, lives in Warsaw)

From 1970's she makes earth and plants sculptures. Her work oscillates between land art and performance.

In 1969/70 she studied History of Art at The Catholic University of Lublin. At that time, being interested in natural environment philosophy, she made het first plant's portraits.

In 1970 - 76 she studied at the Painting Department of The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In the beginning - under Tadeusz Dominik, later - Jan Tarasin.

In 1972 she completed her first sowing with cress / lady's smock - a material which she used in several realizations.

Famous action called "Procession" took place two years later. Artist dressed in a coat made entirely of cress took a specifically routed walk in Warsaw centre. Another time, along with a group of women in her hometown, she grew a 70 meters long cress carpet, that was placed in a local church during the Easter service. In her actions mysticism of primary rituals is very strongly connected with a catholic rite. In action called "Lady's smock" the artist grew cress on her own body, palm and cloths. A colouring and texture of those plant installations were always essential element of Teresa Murak's works (also her graphics and photographic or film documentations).

Apart from plants, another material of her actions is earth. For the first time she used it in "Rzeźba dla Ziemi / The Sculpture for Earth" during the art seminar in Ubbeboda, Sweden. It consisted of two hemispheres, one heaped up, another dug up the ground. The artist also executed installations made of river slime, that were showed during Documenta 8 in Kassel.

Teresa Murak also works with another material, which is bread leaven, left over after baking. It is kind of a connection between floral and human's world. She merged leaven with earth and nursed that mixture in river mud. It was the growing process of this soft, delicate material, and rituals of "making" that fascinated the artist.

In 1988 Murak began a series of actions based on tea towels weaved in 1920' by sisters in Visitation Order. Towels used and washed for many years, where extremely delicate, thin and threadbare, almost transparent. Those were ennobled by artist, as an objet d'art by being used as bases for sowing. Plants sprouted in places indicated by tears in fabric.

Teresa Murak's works in public space are always an attempt of printing the eternal cosmic order (that she finds in combination of geometric, primary forms and organic world) in Earth structure, and plants that she creates. A rational structure penetrates spiritual forces of Nature.

In works like "Słońce wschodzi na ziemi / The Sun Rises Above The Earth" (1995) and already mentioned "Rzeźba dla Ziemi / The Sculpture for Earth" (1996) artist cuts basic geometric figures in the ground. Some of them are being raised above, another being hidden below the ground level. Earth, in her works, becomes a wavy, living material. The artist is not projecting the nature - nature only gives an impulse that starts creation. Murak puts an impact on initiating some specific processes like plants growth or leaven maturation, that later happen naturally, on their own. In that phase, taking care, which involves other people, plays in important part in her work.

In a project called "Dzieła lęgną się w szczelinach rzeczywistości / Artworks Germinate in the Cleaves of Reality" (2004) she sowed linen, sunflowers, mallows, buckwheat, cornflower, cress and cereal in several Warsaw locations ("Lniany stumień / Linen Steam", "Malwy idą do domu / Mallows are Going Home", "Polny zasiew / Field Sowing").

In 2005 Teresa Murak was honored with the prestigeous prize of Katarzyna Kobro for multiannual, original artistic activity.

During the Otwarte Miasto / Open City Festival in Lublin, Teresa Murak is creating an installation of the river of hyssop, which will stretch from the green areas nearby Lublin Castle in East - West direction. A stream, cut out in grass, begins by the Castle Hill, penetrates the roundabout and then twines along the green space between the highways (Aleje Tysiąclecia).

The project began on 2 June 2009 when artist's coworkers torn out the grass, revealing a drawing made of earth. On 25 June, the Open City Festival opening day, Teresa Murak will place hyssop seeds, and seedlings in earth. The line of sowing will not stop in any particular place - it will be continued in future. According to the artist, the value of this project is cooperation of so many people that builds a relation on both, artistic and social level.