North Central College is showcasing a collection of artwork by sculptor Marina Kuchinski in her exhibit titled “For Only” now through Sunday, Oct. 11, 2015. This exhibit is free and open to the public in Schoenherr Gallery at the Fine Arts Center, located at 71 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville, Ill.
Featuring sculpture and video work, “For Only” explores the animality of human beings through our relationship with animals and our relationship with the “Constitutive Other.” In attempting to discover what is animalistic, we consequently uncover what it actually means to be human.
Kuchinski says, “the exhibit is about animal-human relationships. Animal experiences are just as equal to human experiences. And while on the one hand the relationship is about affection, on the other it is about exploitation. I wanted [the exhibit]to be about both.”
Kuchinski, who is highly familiar with the medium of sculpture, used low fire clay without glaze to form her figures. Video, however, is a medium the artist has had less experience working with.
She shares that, “video is new to me. It was exciting and also a good learning experience.”
Speaking of video, if she had to choose, her favorite piece out the entire exhibit is the video of a plastic bag moving in the wind.
Kuchinski states, “I thought that it was funny. To me, the moving bag looks like an animal by itself.”
Most of the videos seen throughout the exhibit were not planned and were taken over time. Kuchinski describes the videos as “discoveries” that were taken in the most causal and everyday settings.
Since the exhibit revolves around this idea of visual movement, Kuchinski wanted the exhibit to include other types of movement as well. By using video, Kuchinski was able to enhance “For Only” through the repetition of looping images.
While Kuchinski’s work generally deals with human and animal relationships, the inspiration for this specific exhibit came from the ordinary act of a man walking his dog.
The artist says, “the dog wore an extendable leash and there was quite a bit of distance between them. As they were walking the [leash]was changing and moving up and down. Visually, I was fascinated by that.”
As an artist, Kuchinski has a deep interest in the “relationship between physical presence and physical space.”
Using three-dimensional figures of the human body and animals, Kuchinski analyzes the totality of both forms while exploring “an object’s reaction to another object.”
Born in Latvia but raised in Israel, Kuchinski found it “obvious” from a young age that she wanted to become an artist. She has “been making art as long as [she]can remember” and even attended a special art high school in her youth. She went on and graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics.
From there, she moved to the United States and completed her Master of Fine Arts in ceramics at Penn State University. Since 2000, Kuchinski has been teaching drawing, 2-D design and ceramics as an art professor at the College of DuPage.
As a final piece of advice to all up-and-coming artists, Kuchinski instructs students “to work hard. Being an artist is hard work. Just persist. Don’t worry about how you’re going to make a living. If you are passionate and you love it enough, you’ll make it work.”
