Angelika MARKUL

Born in Poland in 1977,Angelika Markulbegan her career after studying film, interior architecture, and design, then completed her training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in Christian Boltanski’s studio. A 2003 graduate of the school, she now lives in Paris and creates video works, installations, sculptures, and “everyday works of art.”

In Angelika Markul’s practice, wax—a fragile material, sensitive to heat and touch—becomes a vessel for memory. Absorbing the artist’s gestures like an archive, it gives an almost corporeal form to the central themes of her work: love, myth, extinction, and the archaeology of the future. Her sculptures evoke human, animal, or hybrid bodies, suspended between presence and absence, permanence and disappearance, without ever allowing themselves to be fully identified.

This exploration of the medium places Markul in the tradition of Beuys and Barney, while drawing on the historical uses of wax: votive effigies, anatomical models, and death masks. In all these practices, wax served to preserve a presence beyond life. By drawing on these histories, Markul transforms this material into a substance that stores touch, care, and time, making memory tangible and unsettling.

With this in mind, she designed the“Catch the Bird” side table for ColAAb, which was modeled in wax before being cast in aluminum.

The artist breathed life into it, making it as unique as every living being is, by applying sheets of copper and etching its distinctive features directly onto its surface, turning each piece into a singular imprint—both a sculpture and a presence.

Presentation based on the text by ColAAb.