Alex Palenski
Alex Palenski is a 40-year-old sculptor who lives and works in Paris.
Born in a family of artists, he started creating objects and sculpture since childhood. At 20, he discovered the technique of ‘métal direct’* and crafted his first mobile.
“I grew up in the studio of my mother, who is a professional painter and art restorer, and my grandfather, who used to be a furniture designer, had a great influence on me. He mostly used steel and knew how to work on it like no one else. I learned how to mix aesthetics and technics with him. Creating and making what we needed has always seemed very normal to me: lamps, tables, chairs, and Art of course… “
Defining himself as a manufacturer, as well as a steelworker, Alex Palenski is passionate about the materials he uses. Hammered, bent, cut, welded, polished, weathered aluminum, brass, stainless steel, copper are the technical steps completed by one who is eager to acquire new skills constantly.
“I fell in love with steel first when I was a child, but it took me a long time before getting to know this material. It seemed so hard to handle. I was trained on the job and I had to develop my own techniques and get round my gaps so I could find my style. What I’ve always loved with this material have been the mix of lightness, delicacy, and the solidity of structures. The mobile is the top of this pyramid. The technique of direct metal and the construction of mobiles spoke to me straight away: balances, levers, masses… It’s all very natural to me!”
Though he created his first mobile in 1998 with copper rods and mirrors, it is in 2009, at a Calder show in Paris that he truly got a revelation and that he decided to immerse fully into this art type.
Since then, he has matured his style in many ways. Working on the ductility of metals, he invented his own vocabulary of abstract forms in volume, tense or bent that he shapes like a goldsmith exploring equilibrium and movement. He is also very attentive to the finish of the different metals that he satinates or polishes to obtain jewel-like pieces.
His sculptures capture the movements of the air and light with a mysterious weightlessness and a great poetic force.
Entirely realized by the artist hand, every single piece is unique and stamped.
His works are in private collections all over the globe : New York, Rio, Moscow, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Beyrouth, Geneva, London… and he has worked in collaboration with renowed interior architects in Paris, Geneva and New York.