Marta Klonowska
Polish, born 1964Fenek, 2011
On view
Glass
Dimensions20 × 36 × 20 in. (50.8 × 91.4 × 50.8 cm)
Museum purchase with funds from Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Lillie and The Sheppy Dog Fund, Dr. Alan Klein, Advisor, 2016.1
Marta Klonowska’s sculptures may look adorable, but you wouldn’t want to pet them. Instead of smooth fur they are made of thousands of carefully arranged pieces of broken glass. She transforms a preliminary drawing into a three-dimensional object by welding a metal frame and covering it in wire mesh. She then cuts panes of glass into small shards that are then glued to the frame to become the animal’s body and fur. Her work is deeply inspired by animals in historical paintings. For Klonowska they often take a secondary role to the humans, by isolating them, her glass animals become the primary characters. Here she has depicted a Fenek/Fennec fox, a small nocturnal animal found in the Sahara desert. Their unusually large ears radiate body heat to help keep them cool.
