Of Urban Bondage

Barbara Licha’s ethereal wire sculptures explore the loneliness of contemporary urban life while they also captivate viewers with their awesome and uncommon beauty.

Consider the amazing progress Humanity has achieved over the last century or so. Think of how far our life style has changed as a result of that. Ponder on the sophistication of contemporary urban life and all the commodities made available to us. On the other hand, assess how much we have become dependent on the very wonders we have created and we may tend to agree with Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), the French philosopher and writer whose novels inspired the leaders of the French Revolution, when he said, although within a different context, that “man was born free, but is everywhere in bondage”.

This could be the touchstone to understand the awesome tangled wire sculptures by Barbara Licha, a Polish-born, Australia-based artist, who is stirring the art world with her creations. Having started her career with painting and using other forms of mixed media, she resorted to the use of tangled wire, since this material perfectly fits the message she wants to convey to viewers.

In fact, Barbara Licha’s objective is to “explore the physical and emotional space of our contemporary urban environment” and to emphasize how far we have been trapped within the confines of our cubic dwelling and working places. Galvanised wire further evokes constraints, imprisonment, internment camps, cages, in short, ways of isolating people within limited spaces.

Licha actually creates beautiful, almost ethereal wire sculptures, which illustrate the dualities and complexities of contemporary human condition, always trapped in between the physical and emotional spaces of urban environment. Her wire figure sculptures, encased in their tangled wire boxes, expressively reach out their limbs in their need to touch us, to set a connection with other individuals. It is as if they are crying out for help from viewers to release them from their captivity.

However, Barbara Licha’s compositions look so delicate and fragile that viewers are caught and moved by their frailty which, in turn, is enhanced by the transparency and the fluidity of the medium used. As the artist states, she tries “to convey what she sees inside people: their wishes, dreams and desires” and, by doing so, she actually goes one step beyond and captures her viewers with(in) the beauty of her sculptures. Thus, the dialogue is established between art work and viewer, thereby allowing for the liberation of both, even if only for a brief moment.

Barbara Licha’s unique creations explore the contemporary human condition of alienation and loneliness created by modern urban environments while also showing that “the world of reality has its limits, but the world of imagination is boundless”, as Rousseau also stated.