Marta Antoniak
Born in 1986 in Zabrze, Maria Antoniak graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. In 2011, she received her diploma with honours in Prof. Andrzej Bednarczyk’s studio and is currently a doctoral student at the Academy. Her works deal with the issues of pop culture, mythologizing the image, culture clichés and return to childhood.
Marta Antoniak’s painting connects in a suggestive way what is public – relating to the sphere of pop culture, glamour and flashy make-up of reality, with what is private – relating to memories, dreams, subconscious fears. Her works are a colourful conglomerate of plots with a humanistic message – they all concern human beings and their immersion in the truths and myths of everyday life.
In her pictures, the artist develops the painting technique in an innovative way, enriching it with objects, graphic and drawing forms. She experiments with painting ground and matter. Her research resembles an alchemist’s search for the philosopher’s stone by laying the acrylic paint and solidified plastic from toys the impasto way. In her most recent series of paintings, she presents fragments of human silhouettes with acutely physiological elements resembling the innards of a dismembered body. Antoniak exteriorizes the human inside tongue-in-cheek – the tangle of veins and tendons turns out to be congealed gunk of molten toys covered with a web of acrylic. The meticulously copied anatomy, as if from a Renaissance sketch, clashes with the shape of a banal figure, a human in a simplified, infantile form. Her representations are especially discordant. The artist refers to the human body as a living tissue, at the same time using artificial and processed materials – paint and gaudy, kitschy children’s objects. The plastic corpse refers to the painting tradition of e.g. Rembrandt’s autopsy studies on the one hand, and to the babble and childishness of pop culture on the other. Antoniak juxtaposes the familiar, tamed elements of the human anatomy with those which are alien, pathogenic, associated with illness. The dichotomy emphasizes the double status of the body – controlled on the outside and untamed on the inside, capable of unforeseen mutations. The artist’s painting experiments are therefore actions on the borderline of science (resembling exhibitions of embalmed corpses, plasticized exhibits). They reflect the perennial fascination with the microcosm of human organs and secrets of physiology, but also bring the poignant realization that the study of the human interior is to a large extent filtered through pop culture and its tools.
Jakub Ciężki
Marta Antoniak
Education:
- Ph.D. Course, Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, 2012-2014
- Graduate of the Faculty of Painting, Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, diploma with honours, Prof. Andrzej Bednarczyk’s studio, 2011
- Life-Long Learning Programme Erasmus Scholarship at the ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Enschede, Netherlands, 2010
Individual exhibitions:
- Holiday, Open Studio, Cracow, 2012
- Playroom, COLLECTIVA, Berlin, 2012
- Wonderland, Posto de Turismo de Amarante, Amarante, Portugal, 2010
- Connections, CSW Solvay, Cracow, 2009
Collective exhibitions:
- BMW/ART/TRANSFORMS, Wielki Theatre – National Opera, Warsaw, 2012
- Sacropop, Gardzienice Gallery, Lublin, 2012
- StartPoint 2011 selection, Galerie výtvarného umení Cheb, Cheb, Czech Republic, 2012
- StartPoint Prize for Emerging Artist, Wannieck Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic, 2011
- Winter Landscape – Art Now in Poland, The Venue, Souk Arkwam, Beirut Souks, 2011
- Promotions – 21st Polish Review of Young Painting, Art Gallery in Legnica, 2011
- Best Academy of Fine Arts Diplomas 2011, National Museum, Zielona Brama Branch, Gdańsk, 2011
- Exhibition of Cracow’s ASP Diploma Works, TPSP Palace of Art, Cracow, 2011
- Fresh Blood, Socato, Wrocław, 2011
- Multiplied, COLLECTIVA, London, 2011
- Swab, COLLECTIVA, Barcelona, 2011
- Viennafair, COLLECTIVA, Vienna, 2011
- Brothers Grimm’s Fairy Tales, One Book Gallery, Cracow, 2011
- Memento2, Boekhandel Broekhuis, Enschede, Holland, 2010
- Any Stories Here?, Lamelli Gallery, Cracow, 2010
- Sixteen Worlds, National Art Gallery, Sopot, 2010
- Master and Disciples, Tarnowskie Góry, 2009
- Jeune Creation Europeenne – New Talents In European Art Scene, Paris, 2009
- 306, Florianska 22, Cracow, 2009
- Immagina arte in fiera, Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2008
Distinctions and scholarships:
- Active Creative Workshop, BMW/ART/TRANSFORMS, Large Painting Studio of the Wielki Theatre – National Opera, Warsaw, 2012
- Medal of the Faculty of Painting for Outstanding Diploma Work, 2012
- Life-Long Learning Programme Erasmus Scholarship in Enschede, Holland, 2010
- Two-month residential programme Jeune Creation Europeenne in Amarante, Portugal, 2010
- Third Prize in the Hestia Artistic Journey Competition, 2010
