Emilia Bohdziewicz {Zosia}

he exhibition Zosia brings closer the remarkably coherent yet diverse body of work by Emilia Bohdziewicz – an artist who approached art with conscious maturity and a firm belief in the autonomy of her own language. Born in Warsaw in 1941, she worked for many years as an interior designer. In 1969, she graduated from the Faculty of Interior Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, in the studio of Jan Kurzątkowski. In the late 1970s, at the age of 36, she deliberately abandoned interior design in favor of textile art – a medium she turned into a field for personal and formal experimentation. In interviews, she admitted that her lack of formal education in weaving protected her from the influence of established styles and schools, granting her complete creative freedom.

“The absence of burden from any weaving school led me to creative independence.”

In 1977, her first completed work was shown at the 8th International Tapestry Biennale in Lausanne. It stood out for its radical minimalism and formal rigor. Titled How to Connect Points with Straight Lines in Different Ways Using a Sewing Machine?, the work served as a statement of intent: she explored fundamental visual relationships, structures, and directions. In 1979, at the 9th Biennale, she presented a textile in the form of a book, experimenting with the format of the artwork and the narrative potential of textile as a medium.

Her best-known work – 256 Possible Arrangements of a Sign Containing 8 Elements – won the Grand Prix at the International Textile Competition in Kyoto in 1987. Monumental in scale (355 × 355 cm), the piece was a rigorously systematized composition constructed according to principles of permutation, reflecting the artist's logical and mathematical inclinations.

“Given my distinctly mathematical and logistical predispositions, it was inevitable that if I were to express myself in painting or textile, it would be in the kind of language I practice.”

Bohdziewicz was not a weaver – she did not use looms, nor did she interlace warp and weft. Instead, she sewed. The sewing machine was her brush. Lines of stitching – vertical, horizontal, diagonal – built rhythmic structures reminiscent of notation or musical scores. These compositions, often in black and white and only occasionally accented with color, were marked by restraint and precision.

“The drawing is traced in black or colored thread on a white canvas. The lines are drawn by a sewing machine or hand embroidery.”

Fascinated by the relationship between the structure of material and its marking, she treated textile as a field for structural and morphological analysis. Her art resists classification – it is textile, but also graphic art; drawing, but also concept; formal analysis, but also subtle material poetry. She was also a member of the IXION group – alongside Jolanta Owidzka and Ewa Latkowska-Żychska – known for their experiments with textile as a conceptual and graphic medium.

The exhibition presents the full spectrum of Bohdziewicz’s work: from acclaimed exhibition pieces to previously unseen works, such as 100 Combinations of Addition (250 x 250 cm, 1990, “Little Kyoto”), Conversation with Winiarski (1988), and The Whole Without Parts (1984). Compositions that remained in the shadows for years now emerge as equally significant – full of the same passion for discovery, inquiry, and synthesis.

The title Zosia refers to the name used by her loved ones – an informal, affectionate nickname that carries with it a personal story of relationships and memory. It resonates with the atmosphere of the exhibition: revealing not only the austere precision of her art but also the deeply personal connection with material, thread, and rhythm. This exhibition tells the story not just of an artist, but of a person – attentive, focused, exacting, and also warm.

In preparation for the exhibition, we held conversations with Emilia Bohdziewicz-Winiarska’s family and friends. From these emerged intimate, moving portraits – recollections of a woman who was independent, creative, and uncompromising, who continuously sought, experimented, and deeply believed in the value of clear thinking – both in art and in life. Their stories form an essential complement to this exhibition, helping us see not only what she created, but how she lived and who she was to others.