Vas Florum

Building on the artist’s debut solo presentation at Carpenters Workshop Gallery Paris last year, the exhibition digs deeper into the evocative power of plants in representing memories of people, places and the feelings that emerge from those encounters. Embodied in his Vas Florum series, unique floral compositions have been developed into a contemporary herbarium that speaks about the artist’s subjective experiences while resonating with a more universal meaning, depicting the world we live in. Conceived as ‘time capsules’, each sculpture reinvents the concept of the vessel and its relationship with flowers and their display. In each artwork, flowers are embedded in the body of the form itself, and the species chosen range from those that have been artificially bred for aesthetic purposes, to common ‘weeds’ that are often overlooked yet can thrive in the most inhospitable conditions. Using natural waste material is particularly important to the artist; reclaiming plants that have fulfilled their commercial use, manipulating and enhancing them through various techniques and processes developed over the years in his studio, Rusak extends their lifecycle and gives their ephemerality renewed purpose.