Alex Lelchuk

I came to sculpture intuitively and my art is about intuitive perception of space and movement.

This year, I am creating a series of flat reliefs with emphasis on expressive composition and subject. I like to contrast the bright shiny textured glazes and with rough chamotte clay.

My principal themes in 3D are the stylized human figures and abstract objects with strong expression of proportions, balance and movement. I like contemporary dance and modern architecture for their sense of expressive emotion incarnated in the moving human body and the frozen structure of the building.

Texture is another point of fascination and attraction for me. I worked with clay as ceramist for many years, getting used to earthly roughness of natural clay. Using grained fire clay for my works gives me the sense of life and allows avoiding unnecessary details of the form.

I worked with small children a lot. We created various toys and heroes from clay, played with them right away, and immediately created new ones. This attitude of playfulness is still with me, making every day of my work with sculpture an adventure, new forms and ideas being born right through the modelling process.

That is why most of my works are made of pure fire clay with no...

My formal education was in physics and computer science. That was very long ago.

Since then, I received a lot of informal education and inspiration in all sorts of arts and crafts, as well as pedagogics, history and psychology.

So, I devised and taught my own method of playing clay with small children, based on art and play therapy.

Also, I discovered that I've got an ability to intuitively sculpt things after nature with no formal learning. Sure, I've taken a couple of vocation courses in sculpture portrait and human figure.

So, here I am, having lot's of ideas and images and implementing them in raw clay right away.

February 2025. Joint exhibition with 4 other artist in Auditorium, Haifa