Email: silviakrupinska@gmail.com

Website: http://cargocollective.com/silviakrupinska
Blog: https://silviakrupinska.wordpress.com/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/SilviaKrupinska

SILVIA KRUPINSKA SCULPTOR

I’m a London-based sculptor of Slovak origin (Poprad). I moved to London in 1999, studied Fine Art at Chelsea School of Art and Design, UAL (grad. 2006) and took an MA Art and Science at Central Saint Martins College, University of the Arts London, (grad. 2016).

I’m exploring how we relate to water environments, taking my inspiration from a variety of natural textures and experiences. I aim for a new element of ‘usefulness’ in my work by trying to understand our daily lives, our immediate surroundings and how we can affect their change, for better or for worse. I value a development journey of a project as much as a final result, which is normally reflected in my artistic language, using steel, paper, found natural and man-made objects, concrete and other. Over the last couple of years, I’ve been exploring how art and science can work together in interdisciplinary collaborations.

I’ve exhibited internationally, including in an EU-Art-Network exhibition in Palazzo Albrizzi, The Venice Biennale 2009 and I’ve also participated in a number of shows and art symposiums in Austria, Germany and Azerbaijan.

For the full list of exhibitions, please click on EXHIBITIONS in the main menu on my website.

Workshops, Master-classes:
Workshop and an exhibition stall at The Hidden River Festival, London, 10th September 2016, more info here.
Kate Greenaway Nursery, Islington, four creative sessions about water and painting and drawing, July 2016
Granary Building, UAL, CSM, London, 5 March 2016, Art and Science Creative Workshops – Attentive Topologies and Water Mapping with Beckie Leach. For details click here.
Centre Pod Lesom, The High Tatras, Slovakia, LivePozitive workshop, Creative Mapping and Topography, May 2014
The Stone Space, London, Grape extraction sculpting master- class, December 2012
Molten Festival, London, Grape extraction sculpting master-class, September 2012
The Other Art Fair, London, Fabelist master-class, Grape excavation sculpting, May 2012
Stour Space, London, workshop, Puppet Factory, March 2011
St. Helen primary school, Walthamstow, London, Build a concrete animal garden sculpture workshop, March 2007

Solo exhibitions and projects (UK and international):
Leytonstone Library, London, The Rivers Project – ‘Flow in Progress’ exhibition, 13.9 – 31.10. 2015
House of Culture, Poprad, Slovakia during XXI. Festival Horskych Filmov, Plesá a fragmenty 8 – 15 October 2013, Read more here.
Unit 3 Projects Gallery, Origins exhibition, May 2013
London, Organicities, project and event, September 2011
Land Art Austria, St. Johann/Haide, public artwork commission positioned by Lafnitz River, concrete sculpture – Seed, 2006

Residencies:
Self initiated residency in Walthamstow Wetlands, North-East London, since August 2015, ongoing. Collaboration with London Wildlife Trust and Hydrocitizenship.
Unit 3 Projects group residency In All Directions – Degree Art, London, In All Directions, residency, March 2013

Art Fairs:
#TransActing: Market of Values event, on Saturday July 11, 2015, Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground, located between Tate Britain and Chelsea College of Arts. More here.
ArtCube Art Fair, London, 2014
Curious Duke Gallery, Grand Designs Live, London, May 2013
Qafqaz Resort Hotel in Gabala, Azerbaijan, international art fair and exhibition, (representing Slovakia), December 2011

Talks and presentations:
Walthamstow Wetlands Artists’ Walk, Sunday 4th September. Bookings
Walking Artists’ event. Somerset House, Sunday 17 July 2016
Unfolding Realities Symposium, CSM – UAL, May 28, 2016
Vestry House Museum, London, 18 March, 2016 – Love The Lea Late event. For more click here.
Government Office for Science, London – MA Art and Science presentation about my work, March 8, 2016. (The visual presentation available here.)
Open Q-Art crit at Mall Galleries, London, Thursday 26th November 2015, 3.30- 6pm, The Mall, London SW1, Facebook event
Centre Pod Lesom, The High Tatras, Slovakia, LivePozitive event, Presentation prior to Creative Mapping and Topography workshop, May 2014
Degree Art Gallery, London, In All Directions exhibition, Smart About Art Event, March 2013
ASC Erlang House, London, Pecha Kucha presentation, March 2012
ASC Unit3 Studios, London, Q Art critique, Unit 3, September 2010

Group exhibitions (UK and international):
On the Brink sculpture park group exhibition, part of Leytonstone Arts Trail 2016
Degree Show Unfolding Realities, MA Art and Science at CSM UAL, May 25 – 29, 2016
One Country Three Worlds exhibition by Krupinska, Hreus, and Varg in Embassy of the Slovak Republic in London 20 April – 27 May, 2016
Postgraduate and Alumni Auction 2015, Lethaby Gallery Central Saint Martins King’s Cross, Thursday 19th November more here.
University of the Arts London, Mind_Matter Open Studio Exhibition, Nov 2015
University of the Arts London, CSM, Interim Show At The Laundry E8, You Are The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly, March 2015
University of the Arts London, CSM, The Big Space Exhibition, November 2014
Elthorne Road Studios, UAL, Black Box, November 2014
Fill The Gap Gallery, London, Set In Stone exhibition, 4th -13th July 2014
The Bank Eye, Suffolk, The Glass exhibition, 8th May – 1st July 2014.
The Bank Eye Art Center, Suffolk, Winter Exhibition, 1-23 December 2013
Unit 3 Projects, London, Studio Crawl, 20 November, 2013
Fabelist Connect Exhibition, London, A side-B side Gallery, 21- 26 November 2013
Stylish Pop Up designer shop, Nunhead, London, 5-23 November 2013
Norlington Studios, London, Memorabilia exhibition, July 2013
Degree Art Gallery, London, Unit 3 Projects – In All Directions, residency and exhibition, March 2013
Battersea Arts Centre, London, Freshly Scratched, Performance, December 2012
APT Gallery, London, Q Art Exhibition, December 2012
The Stone Space, London, artForms exhibition, December 2012
Curious Duke Gallery, London, Under The Christmas Tree, November 2012
Curious Duke Gallery, London, First Birthday Exhibition, September 2012
The Stone Space, London, One Day’s Walk exhibition, June 2012
Wallpaper Factory Culture Centre, Leipzig, Germany, EU-ART-Network tour exhibition, April 2012
The Stone Space, London, Inclusions exhibition, March 2012
Cultivate Gallery, London, Vyner Street, It’s Green exhibition, February 2012
The Orange County Centre for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, USA, London Calling exhibition, December 2011-January 2012
Forum Kunst & Architekur, Essen, Germany, Eu-Art-Network tour exhibition, December 2011
The View Tube, Olympic Park, London, oneforone exhibition, March 2011
Stour Space, London, oneforone exhibition, March 2011
Hartberg Museum, Austria, Recycling Concepts exhibition and symposium, November 2010
ASC Unit 3 studios, London, open studios, October 2010
ASC Unit 3 studios, London, Spit&Scrub exhibition, September 2010
Palazzo Albrizzi, Venice, Italy, EU-ART-Network, “Dreaming Europe-Real Europe”
Exhibition, part of La Biennale 2009, October 2009
Chelsea School of Art and Design, London, Degree show, June 2006
Steam Power Factory Tatra Gallery, Slovakia, Hry s Umenim exhibition, June 1996

 

Charlotte Bint about Krupinska’s works (2010)

That Silvia Krupinska is able to approach the making of her sculptures with the attitude of openness that she does is attributable to her belief that art should be, and for her is, fun. Her works are often fashioned from modest materials such as wood, metal, and concrete, as well as some more commonly associated with crafts and play — chicken wire and plasticine. Krupinska’s works are highly coloured and display the tactility and plasticity of their production through their final form and texture. However, the artist’s obvious enjoyment of the materials does not diminish the work’s impact, and an unselfconscious undercurrent of strangeness lends them a subversive quality.

Krupinska began her artistic career as a painter and some early concerns are still present — her decision-making regarding colour in her work is especially painterly. She moved towards working in three dimensions with an intermediary stage of dissecting her paintings and displaying the pieces as installations. Her sculptures to date have ranged in scale, from Family Portrait, 2006, measuring 1.8 metres in height, to Meduza, 2007, at 29 cm in width. They have been variously displayed wall-mounted, free-standing, indoors and out.

Although clearly abstract and a product of the artists’ instinct, the forms echo real entities in the world. Krupinska was born in Northern Slovakia and lived amongst the High Tatras, a mountain range on the Polish border until she moved to England at eighteen. The work clearly references this geography.

The cumbersome forms have an uncomfortable presence in the room, as they seem to possess a level of autocracy. Though they speak clearly of their own physicality and materiality, when encountering them, there is a sense that one has just missed out on witnessing their manifestation, and that their status of full and real existence in the world has only been very recently established. There is something of the supernatural or alien about them, a feeling that they are encroaching. Simultaneously appearing both transient and weighty, their ambiguity only adds to their weirdness. Despite the human hand being so prevalent in this work, one could almost believe that they are able to change form independently.

One of the strongest aspects of these works is their obvious medical connotations, owing to the cell-like appearance of the sculptures and the clinical nature of the tiles. They seem to reference disease — the sense of their spontaneous, independent growth, along with their threatening presence, speak clearly of the malign and the cancerous. The forms also contain ideas about the medical or scientific experiment, and intrusion into the domestic or bodily space.

Charlotte Bint

© 2015-16 SILVIA KRUPINSKA

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