Agnieszka Apoznańska Total Shadow
7 – 25 May 2022
Curator: Bogusław Deptuła

Mia ART GALLERY invites you to the solo exhibition of Agnieszka Apoznańska, which will present works from the artist's latest series. The exhibition Total Shadow is a kind of game of memory and oblivion, of recreating and creating, of painting and remembering. As the artist writes "...model planes have become a special symbol for me – a symbol of death, of passing away, of shadow."

Whole and parts
Agnieszka Apoznańska painted a series of folded/glued model aircraft. Numerous models, but not accurately reproduced, rather ideas of model aircraft. So they are not authentic and specific conquerors of the sky, but rather miniaturised versions of them.
Why did they interest and absorb the young woman? A rather rare and unexpected phenomenon, raising questions.
Painting is remembering. The painter's grandfather assembled model planes, gluing the pieces together for hours. He created a true model collection. With his recent death, the collection disappeared. It disappeared from the face of the earth and the world but emerged again under Agnieszka's brush. She does not quite precisely reproduce her memories and ideas about the collection, but she plays with them. The shapes are hazy and blurred. There are things that are seemingly a cockpit, seemingly a skeleton, ribs, doors, but in fact just conjuring up forms and shapes of the past. There is a lot of it, a real sky flotilla, but only pretend. Invoking the ghosts of airplanes, invoking the spirit of her grandfather. A work of memory and oblivion at the same time. A feverish jotting down what might be a real memory, or what has been recognised as a memory. Is that, in fact, what it all looked like? And what real significance can it have? After all, it is as it seems. A whole was created – the exhibition, all the objects painted for it – but at the same time only a part of the whole which came into being in the painter's mind.
Bogusław Deptuła

Reaching for the definition of a shadow as "the area which light does not reach", the aeroplane, by blocking access to light, symbolises a great danger, an unknown that blocks access to brightness.
The story of my grandfather's death filled me with the need to analyse what had happened. Until his very death, as long as he was able, he glued together model airplanes. Numerous structures filled the space around Him.
Occupying places of honour throughout the flat, they slowly took over the available shelf space, chasing away other items.
After his death, this collection was removed.
With him, therefore, the effects of his long-standing need to create went away. (The shadow is also what is left of them.)
The models were special objects for him, he spun stories about each of them, dusted them regularly and did not allow them to be touched. He admired his works, which for him were unique objects of almost sacred status. These artefacts, which were the meaning of his daily life, lost their collector's value for the rest of his family with the moment of his death. Stripped of their status as special things, they became redundant to the rest of the household, and for this reason were given away into strangers' hands.
Because of my close relationship to this story, model aeroplanes have become a special symbol for me – a symbol of death, of departure, of shadow.
I decided to approach these objects, understand their nature and help myself with accepting the death of a loved one.
I started to assemble my own wooden model. While gluing it together, I analysed its mechanical structure and the nature of the material it was made of. I also analysed the process in which my grandfather became entangled – falling into patterns of the constant need to create and, consequently, satisfaction from the objects He made, He became a self-propelling machine chasing after successive creations. The planes helped kill the remnants of passing time as His illness worsened. My series consists of more than 30 paintings emphasising schematicity and creative continuity around one theme – aeroplanes.
In addition to my grandfather's story, the symbolism of the planes extended to a larger scale...
In view of the ongoing war in Ukraine, they also become a harbinger of a coming catastrophe. My fascination with war machines at a time of Russian military aggression against our western neighbours leads me to reflect on the nature of these objects as well as the hobby itself.
Agnieszka Apoznańska

Agnieszka Apoznańska (born 1995) – graduated in painting from the studio of Prof. Łukasz Huculak at the Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław. Winner of scholarships awarded by the Mayor of the City of Wrocław and the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. Winner of the GRAND PRIX at the ATTITUDES 7 painting competition. She lives and works in Wrocław.