Cuirasse

Taking inspiration from ancient statues, Igor Mitoraj subjects his sculptures, heads, and busts to destructive forces and craquelures, lending them a surrealism reminiscent of the metaphysical vision espoused by De Chirico. Mitoraj works minute effects into the surfaces of his creations, bringing to life the flesh beneath garments and covering bodies with bands and shrouds.
His heroes are youthful warriors, as in this piece which shows a male bust swathed in bandages. Are these warrior’s adornments, the bonds of a prisoner, a dressing for wounds or an exhumed body? The sculpture is shrouded in mystery. Like the ancient statuary art shaped by the hands of time, the monumental piece is made of enlarged fragments of bodies and faces. But for the contemporary artist, it is more evocative of an interrupted dream.

Igor Mitoraj is a Polish sculptor born in 1944 in Oderan, Germany. He studied painting at the School and Academy of Art in Krakow, where he received a classical education. After exhibiting his paintings in Poland, he travelled to Paris to continue his studies at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Following a visit to South Africa in 1974, he began sculpting and presented a solo exhibition at the La Hune gallery in Paris the following year.
Building on the success of that exhibition, he opened a sculpture workshop in the French capital, where he worked with bronze and terracotta. In 1976, he was awarded the Montrouge prize for sculpture (France). In 1983, he set up his workshop in Pietrasanta, near Carrara. White marble brought him closer to his ancient sources of inspiration. He regularly visits Greece to study and exhibits his works at archaeological sites such as Agrigento in Sicily (2011). He died in Paris in 2014.