About the Instructor
Mira Welnowska, a renowned sculptress, is creating award winning works of art in the Realist Tradition. She has studied at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the New York Academy of Figurative Art, the Art Student League of New York and at the Academy of Art University in California. Her lengthy education has provided her with a meticulous academic background for undertaking virtually all classical and figurative forms. She is represented by Gallery 53 in Sarasota, Florida.
Ms. Welnowska is a highly versatile and creative artist who is able to work in different mediums and subject matters. She creates landscape, still life, portraiture and three dimensional figurative pieces. She teaches Sculpture Modeling Class in her studio in Jackson and at Georgian Court University. She provides demonstrations and individual instruction, references to anatomy and proportion, illustrations from classical text, and composition of the figure, as the students work from a model.
Artist Statement
My art is about Nature and Humanity. My figurative, realistic work is true to life. It is about capturing the beauty of the human form and its relationship to the earth environment. This body of work consists of figures placed in the natural surroundings, sculptures depicting nature in the human body, and figures accentuating their form, proportions, and gesture. I created this work to convey my sensitivity to human beauty, as well as my appreciation of nature.
I have chosen to express myself in sculpture because three-dimensional artwork is more accurate than other genre. It is a beautiful representation of the real world. The real world is three-dimensional; therefore, my realistic art is three-dimensional. Sculpture is reality, infinity, you can touch. It has a power and radiation. One can put his hands over sculpture and feel my work. It is a powerful feeling. It touches you on every level.
All around us, plants, animals, and people, at every moment perform the expressions of life. An expression I feel in me and see moving all around me. I know, I must create what I feel. I am sculpting my works with the clay of life, directing their movement. I breathe life into my sculptures by giving them a look of awareness, expressive face, tilted head, or leg lifted in dance. I feel, I can make my sculptures move. They can break the spell of stillness at any moment, by blinking an eye or hearing a breath.
In my works, I express my social views as well as my artistic philosophy. My intention is to convey my feeling to the viewers through my artwork. I encourage my viewer to experience my work by touching it and feeling the power and emotion within, rather than merely observing.