SCULPTURES

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Byter Sue P sent me an email:

People are so clever and creative with such diversity!

Malgorzata Chodakowska

Hope you are happy and well

Sue

Thanks Sue.

Below are some notes and pics re Malgorzata Chodakowska.

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Małgorzata Chodakowska (1965 - ) is a Polish-born sculptor who moved to Dresden in south-eastern Germany in 1991 with her husband, holding German citizenship since 2018.

She returns frequently to her "Stammfrauen" (loosely, "archetypal women") sculptures of women, generally naked and carved in wood, and has also produced figures for fountains and competition pieces. A striking if slightly unconventional outdoor exhibition area for many of her pieces is provided by the small vineyard on the edge of Dresden where she lives with her husband, (who in 2019 insisted to a reporter that his sculptor wife "brings more income home" than is delivered by the couple's 11 acre winery).

Her public profile was raised by her figure of Trauerndes Mädchen am Tränenmeer (Grieving Girl at the Sea of Tears) which commemorates the bombing of the city in February 1945, and which was completed and installed at the city's Heidefriedhof cemetery (de) in 2010.

Chodakowska won the 1st World Award in Sculpture in the 2017 (February) International Interartia Festival Competition and she is also candidate honorary Member of the International Art Academy in Volos, Greece.

Małgorzata Chodakowska works primarily in wood and bronze and is well known for the seductive balance of her figures. But she doesn't just stop there, she creates unusual statues, which bring water and bronze together to form spectacular fountains. Initially, she carves the statue from a large oak trunk, forming the general shape she wishes to create. As Małgorzata carves away layer by layer, the large pieces of wood transform into magnificent statues.

Chodakowska states that inspiration for her sculpture comes from travel. A visit to Portugal inspired her oak-wood sculpture "Portugiesischer Schönling" (loosely, "little Portuguese beauty"). She says that another trip, this time to Egypt in 1996, enabled her to lose her reticence over working with gold. Visiting Cambodia in 2000, she was inspired by Khmer carved stone temple dancers that "revealed the embodiment of good and evil bound together in ecstatic unison".

Her work is both attractive and skilfully promoted. She explained to an interviewer that in 2005 she reached the point that she no longer had to sell everything that she could produce to put food on the table. Since then she has generally retained her original hardwood sculptures, often displaying them on the family vineyard, while selling only the bronze castings produced from them.

One speciality is her so-called "water sculptures" or "fountain figures" which combine an attractive (normally) female figure with a fountain. One (admittedly extreme) example of Chodakowska's commercial success was reported in 2010 when "Überfluss" ("Abundance"), a 1.80-meter high bronze fountain figure completed in 2009, was sold to a businessman for €50,000.

Gallery:

Fountains:

Other Sculptures: