Marta Sala

Studied at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow (2005-2010), where she received her diploma in Prof. Leszek Misiak’s studio. Member and co-founder of the artistic group Strupek. In search of a new language of figuration in painting, she deals in three-dimensional arrangements in experimental activity between live installations and paratheatre productions referring to the tradition of visual theatre. Apart from painting, she makes costumes and decorations, is active in interdisciplinary fields and socially committed animation of culture. Co-organizer and participant in artistic actions of the Strupek group  (http://www.strupek-microart.blogspot.com).

Strupek is a group of young artists from Cracow functioning in an alternating, project-dependent personal arrangement. (…) The group’s interest is difficult to define, it ranges from issues connected with new curatorial practices to transgressing the traditionally understood boundaries of art. Their activity, often unpredictable and marked with a degree of artistic extravagance, introduces art in peripheral fields. For Strupek, the key issue is making contact with the audience, interactively involving and encouraging it to participate in artistic activities.

For Marta Sala, the main problem in art, and at the same time a source of fascination, is the figure and its various games on the painting surface and in visual theatre space. The artist deals in painting, costume design and sewing. She is also an active member and co-founder of the Strupek group, functioning somewhere between visual arts and theatre, referring in its aesthetics to constructivism, Bauhaus Theatre and the Cricot Theatre of Artists. It seems exceptionally valuable to broaden the scope of study and experience of figurative painting with new territories like costume design and theatre. For the painter, visual theatre plays the role of an experiment, e.g. for her spatial works with live participation. The example of the interactive installation shows that what attracts her most in art is building the tension accompanying characters. This peculiar theatre, happening in paintings, time and space, originates in play, it evolves from it and is determined by it. Her diploma pictures already featured characters who were laughing their heads off. The playful element is a strong creative instinct here, a ground on which formally sublime works are created and contrasted with the absurdity of the tale. The playfulness is balanced by seriousness of form, only to change the rules of play a while later and delineate a new field for it. According to Johan Huizinga, “the antithetical and agonistic basis of civilization is given in play, which is older and more original than any culture”. Similarly, looking at the painter’s formally serious and detailed pictures, we ultimately get an insight into their absurd content, hidden somewhere deep, if necessary capable of turning the form upside down.      

Jacek Dłużewski