Artist Olga Ziemska Creates Incredible Sculptures from Natural and Reclaimed Materials

There are many artists who build sculptures out of organic materials, but few works are as impressive as those produced by <a href="http://www.olgaziemska.com/">Olga Ziemska</a>. The Ohio-based sculptor uses natural materials, like <a href="http://inhabitat.com/tag/reclaimed-wood/">reclaimed willow branches</a>, salvaged birch logs, clay and plaster to create wonderful installations that comment on humanity's interaction with the natural world. As Ziemska explains on her <a href="http://www.olgaziemska.com/">website</a>, she uses art as a tool to better understand the world.

In<em> <a href="http://www.olgaziemska.com/Stillness-in-motion">Stillness In Motion</a>,</em> one of Ziemska's most impressive sculptures, Ziemska uses only cut willow branches and wire to depict the silhouette of a woman,

Flowing willow branches extend behind the shape of a woman.

Ziemska's Heartwood Rabbit was part of a public art campaign celebrating the Chinese Lunar Year in Cleveland.

For Heartwood Rabbit, Ziemska used wood, adhesive, enamel and fiberglass to create a small wooden rabbit.

In other works, like <em><a href="http://www.olgaziemska.com/Listen">Listen</a></em> and <em><a href="http://www.olgaziemska.com/How-I-learned-to-listen">How i learned to listen...</a></em> she adds a human appendage to materials found in nature, grafting plaster hands on the top of slender birch trunks and attaches a clay ear onto a conch shell.

"Art allows us to question values, morals, philosophies, religions, science, physics, and our selves," explains Ziemska in her <a href="http://www.olgaziemska.com/S-T-A-T-E-M-E-N-T">artist's statement</a>, "giving us the tools to help understand and see further into the nature of the world that is above, below and in-between."