Loose Medley

The exhibition will feature Teresa Pągowska’s collages from the 1990s, created using paper stencils of simplified female silhouettes – which the artist had previously used for painting – as well as Martyna Pinkowska’s latest paintings, created specifically for this exhibition. 

Pinkowska fills her paintings with impersonal female figures set in interiors that are difficult to identify. She focuses on the repetitiveness and rituals of everyday life. A window often appears in the background, which serves more to separate the characters’ enclosed world than to open it up. The figures are monochromatic, transparent as ghosts – the artist explores the boundaries between the body and the ‘self’ inhabiting it. 

In the case of both artists, the female figures are devoid of individual features and faces. Rather, they represent gestures, emotions and interpersonal relationships. Pągowska repeated these gestures using painting stencils. Sticking them onto cardboard and framing them meant she had chosen not to bring them to life further on the canvases. The previously repeated movements and poses were frozen by the artist or pinned like insects in display cases.