A pillow’s familiar softness gave Victoria Kowalczyk a problem to solve in metal. She wanted something rigid and industrial to have the rounded, irregular appearance of a cushion.
“About 21 years ago, I was visiting a gallery in Idaho and saw ceramic pillows,” Kowalczyk wrote in answers for Scapi.
“I was fascinated by the idea of taking something hard and making it appear soft and comfortable. I immediately wondered if I could create that same illusion using metal.”
Her first forged piece had been a large flower, made from sheets of steel she spent time trying to make look soft. The pillow gave that experiment a familiar form.
“It took a lot of experimenting, plenty of trial and error, and quite a bit of metal before I figured out how to achieve the shape I wanted,” she wrote.
“I eventually developed a process using a forge and an air compressor to create the rounded, inflated appearance of a pillow. Getting the metal to look soft, with natural curves and subtle irregularities, was the biggest challenge.”
“What I love most is that no two pillows turn out exactly alike. Each one develops its own shape, character, and personality through the process.”
Paint offers her a different way of making depth. She described repeatedly returning to a painting of her white rabbit to build up its form.
“With oil paint, I love building layers of color and texture to create depth, movement, and emotion,” she wrote.
“I can never just have one layer, I need to feel the depth.”
The two practices share her interest in materials, but she resists treating them as the same thought process.
“You would think that working in two completely different mediums would create a lot of overlap, but my brain actually keeps them pretty separate,” she wrote.
“With sculpture, I'm physically creating the form and depth. With painting, I'm creating the illusion of it,” Kowalczyk wrote.
“One challenges me to figure out how to build something, while the other challenges me to figure out how to make someone see and feel something through color.”
Explore Victoria Kowalczyk’s work.
Three Metal Pillows by Victoria Kowalczyk. Photo: David Thomas.
