Exhibition curator: Anna Kempa-Gąsior
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
“In my painting practice, I combine the iconosphere of modernity with religious iconography. I emphasise the relationship of popular culture and so-called high art. This allows the paintings to have a cultural memory and a memory of recent times. The advertising slogans of well-known fashion brands that I incorporate into the paintings (Thank God I’m a Woman, Intimissimi, Reserved, Top secret, Let’s everybody be mystique, etc.) give the worlds of the sacred and profane a chance to meet and even communicate. In doing so, I draw attention to the fact that we are becoming more and more immersed in consumer culture, while the images are a question about the suffering associated with the always insatiable eye that constantly craves the new, the different.
The other equally important phenomenon I deal with in painting is the not only pragmatic but above all contemplative ‘dressing’ of the image, i.e. putting on so-called ‘shirts’ inspired by Eastern tradition, Marian dresses, liturgical vestments, and in fact painting or embroidering them. Embroidery here is a meditative phenomenon, soothing both pain and nerves. “The ‘dressed’ image becomes marked, exalted, almost eschatological — introducing the viewer to a spiritual reality.
Conterfects — or coffin paintings — are paintings intended for a funeral ritual. The paintings lend the deceased a symbolic body, replacing the absent body with the present image. And just as one dresses the body of the deceased in the coffin, I dress the body of the painting — I put on a mourning dress, embroider flowers around the head, perform a kind of rite of passage.”
Beata Ewa Białecka
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beata Ewa Białecka – born in 1966 in Mikołów. Graduate of the Faculty of Easel Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. Diploma in Prof. Jerzy Nowosielski’s studio (1992). Awarded the golden Primus Inter Pares badge of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (1992). Scholarship holder of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (six-month residency, Syke, Germany, 1991), the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (1999), the Mayor of the City of Gdańsk (2005, 2017, 2022) and the Marshal of the Pomeranian Voivodeship (2006, 2008, 2011, 2018). Nominated for the “Polityka” Passport in the category Visual Arts (2007) and the Sovereign European Art Prize (2008). Winner of the New Tendencies in Polish Painting 2, BWA Bydgoszcz (2011). Winner of the Grand Prix of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the 6th Sacrum Triennial “Art against Evil”, City Art Gallery in Częstochowa (2006) and the Grand Prix of the 21st Festival of Contemporary Polish Painting, Pomeranian Dukes’ Castle in Szczecin (2006). Distinguished by the jury at the 36th National Contemporary Painting Competition “Bielska Jesień”, Bielska BWA Gallery in Bielsko-Biała (2003) and by the editors of the quarterly “Artluk” Art on the Fall (2010). Nominated for the Pomeranian Art Award for 2016 (Gdansk, 2017) and for the Pomeranian Storms, a plebiscite of the “Gazeta Wyborcza” of the Tricity and the Marshal’s Office of the Pomeranian Voivodeship (in the category Person of the Year in Culture, Gdansk, 2019). Winner of the Pomeranian Art Award for 2018 (Gdańsk, 2019). Nominated for the Kazimierz Ostrowski Award for 2021 (2022).
HONORARY PATRONAGE
STAROSTA POWIATU TARNOGÓRSKIEGO
WÓJT GMINY ŚWIERKLANIEC
MEDIA PATRONAGE
