An intuitive need to experience spaces – conjunctions of motifs and meanings.

Rigid plywood instead of traditional painter’s canvasses – a deepened division of the image into the form and the background. A search oscillating on the edge of painting and sculpture.

At the mia ART GALLERY exhibition, Izabela Kowalczyk, who is in Poland for the first time since graduating from the Łodź Academy of Fine Arts in 2002 and emigrating to France, presents her newest paintings on canvas and paper, as well as works from the “Reliefs” series, begun in 2012.

“It’s a specific need for balance, the first analysis of the road already travelled”, says Izabela Kowalczyk.

The elements of Izabela Kowalczyk’s artistic search are primarily formal, but not abstract. A certain degree of figuration always remains in them. The forms present something, something unspoken, unclear, some undefined fragments, but always linked with surrounding reality, derived from everyday life.

The “Reliefs” are fragmentary images cut out of wood, parts of which are connected with metal hinges and screws. The hinges have several functions. They connect individual elements while maintaining a narrow dividing line b3etween them – the space of the relationship with the background of the wall or the floor. This line and the edges of each element function like a drawing.

“The hinges also introduce the idea of movement into the works, the possibility of folding and unfolding them. This idea of movement, a kind of mental nomadism, represents an important aspect of my work, already visible in the “Objects” series from 20025, in which uneven, unstable houses on wheels made of plywood, with walls connected with hinges, are an attempt at questioning my own place in the world.

The world “relief” in addition to referring to bas-relief, also describes a geographical terrain formation. In my works, the audience frequently sees stylised maps, borders, rivers and territories. The idea to build three-dimensional objects from small, flat elements connected with hinges came from a very prosaic need for easy storage and transport of the works during my many moves. In a way, movement, instability and the associated uncertainty present in my daily life, penetrate into my work and drive my search for an invisible, fluid border between the stable and the unstable, full and empty, dynamic and static, between open space and closed.”

The artist is connected with Wrocław by the “hinges” of her family relations – the reason for her frequent visits. “Wrocław has always been a special delight for me, as a city of dreams, of just the perfect size, an amazing collage of climate, architecture and dynamics, a city around which I revolved for a long time, but in which I’ve never lived, due to many life’s surprises. A city which in a very specific way is part of my personal composition of experiences, observations and sensitivities.”

IZABELA KOWALCZYK – CONJONCTIONS

30th of May - 20th oj June 2015

mia ART GALLERY