Featured Artist Jagna Birecka

Polish artist Jagna Birecka creates stunning jewelry with polymer clay. See more of her inspired work by visiting her website.

 

 

My name is Jagna. I was born in Poland where I also grew up,  got my MA in architecture, followed some university courses in photography and sculpture and started my architectural office, but the last years I spent living in Belgium where I got disillusioned with my profession, followed ceramics at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and finally decided to give up on architecture in favor of art. Now I have just moved back to Poland and I plan to stay, work and be happy here.

 

 

Being an artist with an architectural background I am torn between the art and the functionality of my works. I am always looking for new ways of combining those two aspects, so my art is constantly evolving.

 

 

Being both an artist and an architect I am interested in combining art and science in my artwork. I am using geometric forms, linearity and abstract patterns to represent architecture, science, products of our world, but also the surrounding nature, the Universe – and my own emotions and feelings.

 

 

I create jewelry and visual arts. I use various media of which polymer clay is my favorite, as it gives me endless opportunities for exploring new combinations of colors, textures and shapes. Over the time I have developed my own combination of techniques and ways that results in the unique qualities of my artwork and lets me create images that represent the intersections of my imagination and the real world.

 

 

My influences are first and foremost everything I see, feel and experience, but my abstract imagery is strongly affected by my architectural background.

 

 

My inspiration comes from the world around me, but I am not trying to reproduce the world in my pieces. My approach is to move the viewer’s imagination, therefore I keep my pieces very spare and clean. The titles of the pieces can be seen as starting points for the imagination to begin wandering.

 

 

Even though I have been creating art ever since I remember, I only thought of turning it into a full time occupation not such a long time ago. I am thrilled to see that my artwork is being more and more recognized and receiving very positive critique from people whose opinion does mean a lot to me.

 

 

I am always working hard on finding the best ways to express myself and  I believe this can bring my artwork to a higher level and let it be recognizable and desired. I am also looking for new opportunities: new galleries that are willing to showcase my pieces, new contacts, new ideas… In the future I would like to cooperate with some fashion designers and maybe come up with a show together. I also have the idea of having few (or maybe just one) photographers shoot my best pieces for blow-ups.

For now my pieces can be seen in a few galleries in Europe, in my studio, and on my site, where I also have a blog.