Im FoCus: Zwischen Spriessen und Fliessen by Sam Tho Duong and Małgosia Kalinska

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Malgorzata Kalinska, Sam Tho Duong

The works of Sam Tho Duong and Małgosia Kalińska cannot be understood with the eyes alone. You have to feel them, touch them, and sense their weight to fully grasp them. And also to understand that even the most fragile structures can offer protection, and that softness, too, is a form of strength.

At first glance, the jewelry works of Sam Tho Duong and Małgosia Kalińska seem to come from different worlds. Sam Tho Duong's dense bead compositions form complex, almost breathing, and vibrant surfaces— both fragile and resilient. Małgosia Kalińska's polyurethane pieces, on the other hand, appear soft, smooth, light, and harmonious, serene and self-contained, as if shaped by air rather than by hand.

And yet, both approaches converge in a shared sensibility: Both Sam Tho Duong and Małgosia Kalińska allow their forms to evolve, react, and develop their own logic. Both approaches play with the ambivalence of protection and vulnerability, of organic growth and controlled spontaneity. In both works, the material is not merely shaped but acts independently, challenges, and is sometimes allowed to take the lead.

In Sam Tho Duong's pieces, playful freshwater rice grain beads sprout from organically shaped silver bodies, forming pulsating organisms. His works evoke coral structures, sea urchins, frozen dewdrops, and natural phenomena that we somehow recognize, yet have never seen quite like this. His pieces develop through intensification, flourish in digression, blossom in repetition, and bear witness to loving perseverance. Their surfaces oscillate between ornament and protection, between enticement and distance.

Małgosia Kalińska creates freely formed, lightweight, biomorphic bodies from polyurethane or polyresin— cast, stretched, and left to their own devices. In her work, she provokes the unpredictable through deliberately limited control in the creative process. Her gentle forms evoke skin, membranes, and corporeal volumes. They transport the viewer to fluid exterior and interior spaces filled with harmony, balance, and serenity. They defy clear contours, as if they had no boundaries— fragile in appearance, yet surprising with untamed strength.