He, Venus, Youth from the series Universale 4000x5

Universale is a project developed since 2015 in which Krzysztof Renes examines the relationship between two- and three-dimensional forms and their meaning in the context of culture and human perception. The artist works with simple, flat materials, such as paper, copper, or aluminium, which, through minimal interventions (for example, bending), transition into spatial forms.

Renes seeks liminal states between materiality and immateriality – the moment in which an object becomes merely a record, an idea, or a sign. In collaboration with Dr. Jakub Sitek from the Warsaw University of Technology, he created a sculpture in graphene – a two-dimensional material one atom thick. Works from the Universale series refer to primal, simple, universal depictions of the human figure. The reduction of form is not the final effect here, but the starting point in a process of searching for spatial qualities in flat materials.