“Freedom” is a three-dimensional wire sculpture standing outdoors on an equilateral platform.
The sculpture is situated in a grassy garden area of The Dominican monastery with the Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, located in Piarist Square. Around the base, there are low-growing green plants. In spring and summer, low rose bushes bloom here.The garden around the sculpture appears slightly wild and unmanicured. Behind the sculpture there is a low wall, and further away there is a rear facade of the tenement house, which doesn’t happen to have too many windows…
The sculpture is constructed from thin metal rods, dark in color. They are arranged in a geometric, open framework. The rods intersect and connect at sharp angles, forming a structured, wireframe design with no solid surfaces. The sculpture represents a human hand making the gesture commonly known as „Victoria“ or the „peace sign.“ The hand is scaled, enlarged. It has a height of about 2 metres and a width of 1 metre at its widest point.
This giant hand is anchored on a raised base shaped like a heptagon – it has seven sides. But the heptagon is not regular, some of its sides are a bit shorter, others a bit longer. The base is made out of concrete. It is greyish, or to speak, silver-colored. The sculpture is fixed securely to this platform with several rods extending down to its surface. The shape of the mounting structure corresponds to the shape of the platform. It is also a slightly uneven heptagon.
The sculpture is formed with the palm facing outward and the index and middle fingers extended straight up. These two fingers are separated in a V shape, clearly distinguishing the gesture. The other three fingers—the thumb, ring, and little finger—are bent downward and inward, forming a fist at the base of the structure. The extended fingers are the highest points of the sculpture, giving it a vertical emphasis. The hand is modeled in a simplified, abstract style. The form is built entirely from metal rods, without any solid or curved surfaces. Each finger is suggested by several straight rod segments connected at angular points. The geometry is irregular and open, with negative space between all elements, allowing the viewer to see through the entire structure. Despite the abstraction, the overall form of the hand and the gesture it makes is clearly recognizable.
But there is one catch to the whole thing that may be easy to miss. Two straightened fingers are wrapped several times with barbed wire. A fragment of the barbed wire protrudes above the pad of the middle finger. As if climbing upwards, towards the sky.
This sculpture expresses author’s feelings about the present time, which he perceives as tense and restrictive. It was created as a follow-up to the sculpture Outstretched Hand, which was installed during the period of closed borders due to the COVID pandemic. The barbed wire, which is deliberately incorporated into the sculpture, symbolically evokes the restriction of freedom once again. The detail of the barbed wire and the ellipsis in the title emphasize the shift in how the author perceives freedom—something he had experienced differently since the 1990s.