A Springboard Into History
Bronek Kozka
Bronek Kozka lives and works in Melbourne Australia. Kozka has an ongoing involvement in arts education, he is a lecturer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (university). An ongoing investigation into the portrayal of remembered moments, through the tableau photograph, has lead to explorations of “real vs. fake”, the use of 3d scanning and much more fluid understanding of what we remember and why it’s important to us.
Kozka has completed a BA (photography), MA (Arts) and is currently a PhD candidate: “Perfect: Synthetic: hyper-reality, the re-staging of memory and the tableau” looks at cultural theme parks, outdoor museums and historical re-enactment groups.
His images are constructed, be they physical room sets, 3D generated spaces (and characters) or other artificial spaces, such as the “Theme Parks” series. This “construction” based approach to lens based work has also informed his sculptural practice.
Kozka has exhibited in several group shows and award/prize shows, these include the national portrait prizes of both the Australia (2007+2009) and UK (2008), Albury Art Prize (highly commended), SCAP08 (commended) Scap09, Monash Gallery of Art Award (2008+2009) and the Hasseblad Masters Award 2008. Kozka's solo show include "Picturing Community: Ugunja, Kenya" (2002), "Auschwitz Revisited" (2005) and "The Best Years of Our Lives" (2009), Kozka has also been invited to exhibit a solo show at the Grand prix international de photographie de Vevey in September 2010, wining the Broncolor Award for lighting, running in the same month Kozka’s work is also to be shown at the Pingyao International Photo Festival in China at which he was honored with an award. In 2011 Kozka’s work featured at Chobi Mela, the Bangladesh photo festival. Works have been exhibited in Korea (Hanmi Museum of Photography) (2012), Italy (2012), Singapore(SIPF) and China (Pingyao 2012+13). His sculptures have been exhibited in Lorne’s Sculpture Biennale, WSSP with a major work to shown at Sculpture by the Sea (2016).
Kozka’s work was published by teNeues in the Hassleblad Masters Book Vol.1, they were “Sunshine House” & “Passion”. Kozka’s work was also featured in the Australian publication (Book), Hijacked: Australian & German Photography and Lumens Festival: Curating the Ancient City.
Kozka work is held in private and public collections in Australia and internationally. He is represented by MARS Gallery in
Melbourne & Bett Gallery Hobart, Australia and Clelia Belgrado Gallery in Genova, Italy.