Your latest series, “Phantoms,” draws inspiration from symbolism, romanticism, and surrealism. What drew you to these artistic movements, and how do you reinterpret them in a contemporary context?
These aesthetics attracted me for several reasons. It is a language that is capable of indirectly telling stories and building complex narratives, while still being open to different interpretations. Initially, my fascination with the art of the turn of the 20th century was purely visual – the aesthetics and atmosphere of these works still resonate with me a lot. With time, I began exploring selected themes and focused on secondary characters and motifs bordering on mythology: figures of chimeras, sphinxes, or specific female archetypes such as the femme-fatale. I felt that these characters were treated as supporting roles, often complementing the male-centered point of view, so I wanted to emphasize their importance in a symbolic way.
The artist residency at Prague’s PRAM Studio was an important event for me, as it included extended research on the aforementioned themes in Czech art. It was (and still is) a rich source of inspiration for me. I saw works by František Kupka, Jaroslav Panuška, Jan Preisler and many other prominent artists of the time. I was also in awe of Czech architecture, and a great discovery for me was the Portmoneum, the Josef Valhalla Museum. The latter inspiration had a great impact on the exhibition that concluded the residency. It was the first time I created large-format wall paintings, which was possible partly thanks to the curator of the exhibition, Šárka Koudelová.
Your works juxtapose classical techniques with contemporary elements, creating a dissonant effect that plays with perception and memory. What role does this tension between eras and motifs play in your storytelling?
In my artistic practice, the choice of technique and medium is as important as the subject matter. The quality of workmanship or, more broadly, craftsmanship in general, are very important to me. Sometimes, the workmanship itself can become the main subject of the artwork. I like to think of my works as entities suspended in time since I draw inspiration from different periods of art history. Maybe it’s a subconscious desire to fit into the canon, or perhaps the need to evoke the feeling that the viewer is communing with something familiar, sometimes it’s both. It sometimes feels as if humanity isn’t much farther than, say, a hundred years ago. Despite the massive technological advances, the same fears and anxieties accompany us on a daily basis. By evoking motifs from, for example, turn-of-the-century painting, I think I want to mark a certain continuum.
Your pencil drawings are known for their dense patterns and textures like medieval engravings. How do you approach the medium to make it almost equal to the theme of your work?
As I’ve said, the manner and quality of execution are very important to me; the frequent dissatisfaction of not being able to get the perfect result is often mentally exhausting. This feeling sometimes even becomes the central theme of a work, and turns into a compulsive repetition of one theme, as in the case with hair, which is a recurring motif in my drawings. I’ve been returning to it repeatedly since my studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. Here, the theme is closely linked with the technique. I chose the most banal tool and technique, pencil drawings on paper, where the limited medium itself forces the search for new solutions. At the same time, it is an elegantly simple and noble medium. The obsessive repetition of a motif, the desire to one day represent it perfectly, even if it sometimes in fact deviates from the actual representation can evoke the act of hiding behind the hair, using it almost as a dense curtain which obfuscates all the strong emotions.
You work across different media, from drawings and paintings to ceramics and textiles. How do you choose which one to use for a specific project, and how does each one contribute to the narrative of your work?
Even for me it’s hard to say. The choice of medium appears at the same time as the thought of what I want to say or do, and I often decide based on intuition. I’m still fascinated by design and craft, and I am increasingly drawn to them. It’s especially clear when it comes to ceramics, my interests revolve around it in architecture, in the form of ceramic compositions, mosaics, or reliefs. There is a rich tradition of this type of implementation in Poland, and it is telling that many of them can be found in Kraków, my hometown.
One of the most important projects for me was the recent exhibition with Marta Niedbał, “Hold Me Closer”, which we created for the Warsaw Gallery Weekend (2023) for HOS Gallery. We displayed fabrics (the main medium Marta uses) which we created together, combining my embroidered figurative elements with the rich, wild matter of Marta’s works created with a technique called tufting. It’s a commentary on mutual trust, closeness, care, that we extend towards each other’s works, but also about blurring the notion of authorship. Fabric seemed like an appropriate medium for this storyline and ultimately the exhibition won the second grand prize at WGW.
Your artworks explore complex emotions, threats, and fears that resonate with the human experience. What do you hope viewers take away from your work?
I have always struggled with a lot of hang-ups, the constant feeling that I am not good enough, and these emotions come across in my artworks. It brings about depressive states or different kinds of darkness. It was quite late in my life that I realized that you don’t have to be hugely successful to achieve satisfaction with your work, otherwise you will always feel not good enough. Sometimes, it takes me a while to realize where an artwork of mine comes from, and I think that all these “emanations of weakness” can be flipped and become a source of strength, used to build up one’s set of values, self-confidence, or maybe even become a way to accept this darker side and tame it a little. I often hear that art is used as self-therapy, and I agree. I think it might be a tool for taking a better look at oneself.
In your paintings, you combine motifs like wood grain, metal mesh, hair, medieval weapons, chimeras, and non-binary hybrids. What is the significance of these elements, and how do they contribute to the atmosphere of your work?
Over time, I have developed my own set of elements or motifs that I like to recall and juxtapose in a more or less surprising way. It is a way of thinking close to how Surrealist artists worked. Many of these elements attracted me by their visual appeal, while others hide a more deliberate message or symbolism. The grids or chain-link fences, for example, represent the ubiquitous boundaries and barriers in our lives, both the physical ones that divide societies and the limitations in our heads. The hair, in turn, is a symbol of strength, following the principle that our weakness might be our weapon. Many of these elements are related to symbols of power, violence, or patterns we are stuck in. These are often oppressive situations and I don’t try to give an answer on how to solve them, but rather expose them. I believe this is the first step to overcoming them.
