Patrick Ostrowsky at Galerie Britta Rettberg

Artist: Patrick Ostrowsky

Exhibition title: Past Life

Curated by: Àngels Miralda

Venue: Galerie Britta Rettberg, Munich, Germany

Date: May 6 – June 11, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Galerie Britta Rettberg, Munich

A past-life implies an after-life, the act of passing through a threshold of transformative properties. Patrick Ostrowsky’s new works continue to tackle the formal implications of his previous investigations on form and formlessness, industrial and organic structures, and textures of toxicity that reappear in new experimentations with ceramics. Through the kiln-firing process the formless malleable clay solid, liquid glaze, and plasmatic fire kindle an amalgamated composition. In Speaking in Tongues (2022) a wet tongue covered in crackled glaze serves as a functional candle-holder which, when activated, represents all three states of matter. Fire constantly consumes and deforms – turning solid wax into liquid, and liquid into air. Anthropogenic figures emerge out of a new series called Plateau (2022) which is made of wet earth-piles of concrete and resin which capture the shadows of footsteps in dark and muddy quicksand. Textures range from rough to smooth in this crackled and sandy surface. Growing above, a stump-like organic form resembling a Venus fly trap is covered in greenish glaze that references artificial nature and defines a mesh between beauty and mortality. The works act as a swamp in a hyper-modernistic city. They reference a past life imagined by our concrete surroundings, about banalities that have been largely lost, and age-old techniques that translate the undeniable beauty of forms that we still carry within our modern aesthetic vision.

Patrick Ostrowsky, Past Life, 2022, exhibition view, Galerie Britta Rettberg, Munich

Patrick Ostrowsky, Lucky D., 2022, Glazed ceramic, 34 x 25 x 20 cm

Patrick Ostrowsky, rock play, 2022, Glazed ceramic, 37 x 24 x 2 cm

Patrick Ostrowsky, Past Life, 2022, exhibition view, Galerie Britta Rettberg, Munich

Patrick Ostrowsky, sea clay, 2022, Glazed ceramic, candle, 47 x 27 x 4 cm

Patrick Ostrowsky, Plateau (green lava bed), 2022, Paper concrete, concrete, epoxy resin, wire, red sand, ceramics, 72 x 106 x 10 cm

Patrick Ostrowsky, Speaking in Tongues, 2022, Glazed ceramic, Dimensions variable, Series of 8 tongues

Patrick Ostrowsky, bassin, 2022, Glazed ceramic, wood, steel, 58 x 27 x 34 cm (inkl. base)

Patrick Ostrowsky, Lucky D., 2022, Glazed ceramic 34 x 25 x 20 cm

Patrick Ostrowsky, Plateau (lake of fire), 2022, Paper concrete, concrete, epoxy resin, wire, PU foam, paper cup, plaster, ceramic, candle, 112 x 108 x 8 cm