NATALIA BAŻOWSKA

Natalia Bażowska’s canvases exude tension, which the artist brings out with fleshy brushstrokes and dense paint textures. Emerging from patches of vivid color, the characters in her paintings are often devoid of individual characteristics. They remain fuzzy and ungraspable, and thus encourage us to look within ourselves and our own sensibilities. She is an artist and holds a Ph.D. in psychiatry, and is a winner of Hestia Artistic Journey, the Young Art Review “Fresh Blood” and the “New Image/New Look” competition.

She has also received grants from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Marshal of the Silesian Voivodeship. She became famous with her 2014 video performance “Luna”, in which she explored the relationship between a female artist and a wild wolf with empathy for the natural world, a characteristic feature of her work. Bażowska declares her fascination with human life, psyche and body. Drawing inspiration from the surrounding reality, she explores the relationship between life and art. Feeling a strong bond with nature, she creates paintings, photographs, installations and videos. In her works, she explores themes of social and interspecies relations, and talks about emotions and the need for communication.

MONIKA FALKUS

In her works, she explores themes of love, intimacy and sexuality and the associated feminine nature and power. The artist also addresses motifs of the subjective treatment of the body and the related abuses. She draws inspiration from historical and contemporary cultural codes, the literary world of myths and fairy tales, but also personal memories and experiences. She seeks connections between the worlds of people, animals and plants. Motifs and symbols unfold in her paintings like stories, inviting the viewer to embark on their own interpretive wanderings and unravel the clues. Falkus graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice with a degree in painting and from the University of Silesia with a degree in art history. She creates oil paintings, installations and videos. In painting, she is most strongly influenced by color, with which she expresses moods and sensual values. Using almost monochromatic pastel backgrounds, she creates disjointed contour compositions with bright colors. In her semi-abstract paintings, the characters are sometimes deformed, and the boundaries between body parts are blurred.

MARTYNA PINKOWSKA

In her paintings, Pinkowska portrays the complex world of fears, desires and pleasures characteristic of contemporary women. The mysterious and partially deformed female silhouettes escape focus and explicitness, emphasizing the constant tension that accompanies the search for one’s own identity. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice and a beneficiary of grants from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, as well as the winner of the Grand Prix award at the Spring Salon, held in the Contemporary Gallery in Opole.

The winner of the “New Image/New Look” competition and finalist in the Young Wolves art competition creates paintings, spatial installations and videos. In her works, she blurs the boundaries between the imaginary world of fantasy and memories and reality. For her, art is a form of self-analysis, a tool for taming her own experiences and emotions. She is interested in what influences the formation of women’s identity and the universal experiences shared by many women, arising from physicality, social roles and stereotypes.