Oold Wives’ Summer

Karolina Jabłońska’s latest exhibition reveals a reflec­tive side of her artistic per­sonality. The land­scape, the pas­sing of time, and a col­lec­tion of meaning­ful props come together here to form an almost cinematic narrative—yet one without a clear dominant theme. It is a world that is, in its own way, almost irritating. Gloomy weather, unset­tling news that loses significance from one day to the next, a sense of distrac­tion leading to a retreat into oneself—all this reads like a record of the con­tem­porary social con­dition and the emotions that accom­pany it.

How, and can, such a state be pain­ted? Jabłońska plays with scale—combining the gran­deur and monumen­tality of the land­scape with an atten­tion to detail, to seemin­gly random frag­ments of reality observed from intimate proximity. The grand nar­rative inter­twines with private notes.

Late summer here is neither sunny nor par­ticularly warm. Instead of lazy threads of cobwebs, what falls are large glassy drops of water. In them—as in magnifying glass lenses, and as in tears—the world appears even more dramatic, both close and distant at once, con­den­sed into terse new­spaper headlines car­ried away by the wind.

Someone has already packed their bags, someone else has already gone, “The End” has soun­ded, yet some unseen force still holds us before the screen. It is the power of the image, in which one can be both viewer and protagonist at the same time.