Marcin Rusak’s Botanical Lighting Objects are Made with Real Leaves Encased in Zinc.

Installation view of Marcin Rusak’s pieces at Carwan Gallery, Athens. Photo: Giorgos Sfakianakis.

Marcin Rusak’s lighting objects seen in-situ inside the designer’s home. Swoon.

We’re a bit slow on the uptake on Marcin Rusak’s latest project, nevertheless – such amazingness still deserves its own spotlight. Recently unveiled at Carwan Gallery in Athens, the Polish artist and designer debuted a series of new botanical lighting objects during his solo show dubbed Encoded Symbols: Protoplasting Nature.

Inspired by the beauty and impermanence of plants, these unique sculptural objects combine metal and botanical elements, in an exploration of timelessness and transformation.

Marcin Rusak is known for his innovative work with plants and the way he uses them to create thought-provoking design objects. Born in a family of floriculturists, Rusak has developed an artistic practice that is oriented around the ideas of ephemerality, decay, preservation and consumption. In his singular work, he uses science (such as industrial manufacturing or biology) in combination with the fragile beauty of plants and flowers to achieve a poetic result.

In Protoplasting Nature, Rusak combines metal and exotic leaves to make opposing processes — life and death, renewal and decay — evident. A load-bearing structure, formed by hand using welded steel, evokes organic shapes and ornate 17th-century furnishings. In place of a lampshade, Rusak attaches real leaves from the exotic plant Thaumatococcus Daniellii, a rhizomatic herb widely cultivated in central Africa. The entire sculpture is then coated in zinc using a process of nebulization, thus permanently encasing the leaves within a thin metal shell.

All pieces presented at Carwan Gallery are unique. One of the objects is shown in its unfinished state with the leaves not yet covered with zinc, to demonstrate the artist’s process.

Encoded Symbols: Protoplasting Nature is an exclusive project commissioned by Carwan Gallery and is a collaboration with IN Residence, a contemporary design research residency in Turin, Italy.

Related: Marcin Rusak’s Flora’ Collection Made from Real Flowers Encased in Resin.

[Images courtesy of Carwan Gallery.]