Marzena HETTICH-URYSZEK (b. 1969), Look of love, 2023

mixed technique (oil, schagmetal), canvas, 90 x 90 cm, signed p.d.: M.Hettich-Uryszek

Graduate of the Faculty of Painting and Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw. She obtained her diploma, supplemented by an annex on sculpture, in the painting studio of Professor Krzysztof Skarbek.
She lives and works in Poland and Germany. In addition to her artistic activity, she has been teaching art subjects for years.
Her work is parallel: painting and sculpture, mainly ceramic, and she likes to combine both, creating the so-called interdisciplinary art. She is close to the belief that form determines content. While appreciating classical painting, the artist uses other creative techniques. She eagerly reaches for collage. Collage is, on the one hand, an opportunity to use various "by-products" of civilization development (cigar rings), and on the other - the possibility of their recontextualization, which is an expression of the artist's intercultural and intertextual search. The series of works created using this technique can be described as cultural recycling.

The center of interest is the human being, especially the woman and various emotional states. These interests are reflected in the artistic output, firstly - vivid and strong colors. And secondly, the strong presence of portraiture. The latter seems to suggest references to the tradition of figurative painting, but the artist does not shy away from choosing in the direction of abstraction.
In sculpture, her specialty is intimate sculptural forms, most often created in ceramics. She also has on her corner realizations in bronze.
While evoking the beauty and ideal proportions of classical sculptures, she simultaneously reinterprets and modernizes them. She emphasizes the imperfections of human nature through cracks and intentional damage to the sculpture's surface. As she says, I would like my figures to have a soul in addition to a beautiful body.
In her sculptures, striving for the ideal of classical beauty, though marred by imperfections, one can find one's own weaknesses or difficulties of everyday life.
These blemishes and stains are, to quote the author, actually signs of frailty, a story of human transience and existence. They are our scars, causing us suffering, but at the same time giving us strength, nobility and beauty.