1. Where were you born and where are you from ?

I came from Poland. When the communist era collapsed I was 10. I remember the deficiency of goods, the times when any goods in the market were luxury. This deficiency shaped me. As a child I was fascinated by things that today seem rubbish. These fascinations resonates in me to this day. Thanks to those experiences , I know that things matters, because we assign value to them. They are precious for us because they evoke emotions.

2. What is your first memory connected to the art world ?

We had coffee table art books at home, which I looked through passionately. My favorite was the Hieronymus Bosch album. It both terrified and bewitched me at the same time. I was captured by how beauty and horror mixed in it. Years later I have discovered it was in black and white. My imagination colored it.

3. Have you always worked in the art/design field ?

I discovered very early that I wanted to be a painter and since primary school, I have strived to be one. I fulfilled this desire and graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. It was already after the graduation when I have turned to design, although I have never break off my relationship with painting. Most of my works refer to painting.

4. What led you to the design creation ?

Somehow, the reasons were pragmatic. After graduation, I had to find my way in adulthood, and it was difficult to make a living from painting. Secondly, I am rebellious by nature and I don’t like to follow the beaten paths.  I have always been open to different languages of expression and tried not to limit myself to one convention.

5. How would you describe your creative process and it influences ?

My creative process comes from fine arts and conceptual thinking. At the beginning of the process, I am always reworking the idea in my head. Then, autonomous abstract works on paper are created (drawings, paintings, cutouts). They motivate me to work on the object. 

What is important is the fact that all my designs are manufactured in my own studio, so the design process does not end with the prototype. Designing a manufacturing process is a part of it. It requires great perseverance and teamwork.

6. Could you describe a typical day of your work ?

We usually start work at 8:00 a.m. and finish around 5:00 p.m. That’s the only constant. The rest changes depending on everyday tasks. We are a small team of five guys, so we share all responsibilities with production and running the studio. It’s the best when I can invent and prototype new things, but sometimes I also have to do repetitive things, like glazing. 

We are developing, slowly but constantly so together with the whole team, we are improving and expanding the production line, looking for the new solutions and technologies that would make it easier for us to implement new ideas. During the day, we eat dinner together and talk. We like each other very much, so if nothing is chasing us, it’s a great time.

7. Why did you choose the specific materials you work with ?

Now I work mostly in ceramic but I think I can say that the material has chosen me. While being a student I earned money working in ceramics studio. There, I have learned the secrets of this material, although than I did not suspect, that it would become my language of expression. The first time I consciously used it creatively because it was familiar to me, and then, as in love, the more you get into it, the more interesting it becomes. I think I am open to other materials, because any new skills expand creative possibilities field and open the mind but recently I remain loyal to ceramics because what I already know about myself it is that I am an analogue person. I need contact with physical material. Even if it is difficult like ceramics, solving issues never frustrate me as much as the digital reality. Working with hands has a deep meaning to me. Ceramics has this additional feature that it creates the space for color experimentations and it is spatial. So it is a kind of bridge between painting and sculptural objects – that’s what I find very attractive about it.

8. What are the technical particularities of your creations ?

As I mentioned, I focused on ceramics and I want to develop in it. So far, we have used the casting technique from plaster molds in the studio, but we want to expand the technology to include pressing and extrusion. Our new ceramic tile compositions have open character and we would like to have more possibilities to create various types of forms.

9. What advices could you give to beginning artists who would like to create sculptural design works ?

In my opinion, follow your intuition and question it at the same time. ask yourself as many questions as possible – what do I want to say? why am I doing it? why this way and not otherwise? What do I like and what I don’t like and why? What interests me the most in this material? Self-awareness and perseverance are key in my opinion.

10. If your works had to belong to a design movement, in which one would you define it ?

I like blurring the boundaries between ways of thinking and art movements. I adore the formal discipline and passionate faith of modernism, but I also love the distance and humor of postmodernists. It’s great that while designing, you can combine the contradictions. I would definitely like to be a part of a design community that does not ignore human impact on the natural environment. I believe that careless designing and manufacturing is impossible today.

11. What designers and artists have influenced you ?

Design is not my learned profession, so I had no masters in this matter. I was rather shaped by creative postures in art. What I mean here is not only the artworks. For me – a common child from the grey apartment block, exuberant lifestyle of painters I have admired, was an emanation of vitality and freedom to me. I just wanted to live like that, and they were proving that it is possible.

12. What contemporary designers do you appreciate ?

I appreciate designers who straddles borders between fine design and fine art, such as Ronan Bouroullec, Nathalie du Pasquier, Polish ceramicist Monika Patuszyńska or Polish artist Antoni Starczewski. It seems to me that the context of art allows me better to understand the things they create.

13. What contemporary artists (in any kind of art) have you been inspired by ?

In my works, I often refer to Polish artists, mostly abstractionists. I openly communicate it. I think of “inspiration” as a dialogue, as a relay race – you take someone’s idea and develop it in your own way. And so the TRN collection was a kind of conversation with Jan Tarasin, and the latest project of ceramic tiles compositions refers to painters such as Wojciech Fangor or Stefan Gierowski, but also to the sculptural works and linear notation of Antoni Starczewski. It’s not a marketing story, I really feel a connection with them. This, I think, proves that abstraction is not fully abstract, it processes elements of the real world and convert them to the form of an image.

14. If you had to summarize your creations in one word or sentence, what would it be ?

It’s rather reflective, but quite joyful, affirming work.

15. Is there anything you would like to add ?

I would like to encourage all to be creative and do manual work. This is a time of reflection that is never wasted.

Proust Questionnaire with very short answers (one or a few words) :
(The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions answered by the French writer Marcel Proust. Other historical figures who have answered confession albums are Oscar Wilde, Karl Marx, Arthur Conan Doyle, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Cézanne…)