Agata Słowak

I’m beautiful, I’m a great artist!

My degree piece touches upon topics related to gender and feminism, it also contains motifs related to the role of ritual and magic as alternative forms of knowledge transfer and community-making among women. Oil paintings refer to paintings from past eras, depicting female bodies in Renaissance poses, with attached members (sometimes deconstructed and chopped up), which indicates that issues related to human sexuality are not just modern ones. In my paintings, wild animal instincts, dark desires and carnal urges meet. I have been encouraged to take up this subject in painting by oppressive patriarchal attitudes and observation of the status of women in the world of art over the centuries. The paintings are supposed to express dissent from the fact that nudity, sex, LGBT symbols, criticism of Catholic Church and gender are still scandalising in our country.

(born 1994)
Studies at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2014–2019). Scholarships from the Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts (2017/18, 2018/19), voivodship for students of art HEIs (2018), capital city of Warsaw (2018/19). Works in painting, fabrics and installation. Solo exhibitions: Agatki, Kaplica Gallery, Warsaw (2017); Noone is born a woman, BSCK, Busko-Zdrój (2018). Group exhibitions in Warsaw: Wihajster freiheit swallow = and There’s no love, Salon Akademii (2018 and 2019); Paint, also known as blood. Women, affect, and desire in contemporary painting, Museum of Modern Art and The teaching body, Raster Gallery (2019).

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