Artist: Katarzyna Szymkiewicz
Exhibition title: You Want a Piece Of Me?
Curated by: Aleksander Celusta
Venue: Henryk Gallery, Krakow, Poland
Date: July 14 – September 16, 2017
Photography: StudioFILMLOVE, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Henryk Gallery, Krakow
I’m Mrs. Extra, Extra, This Just In
(You want a piece of me?)
The You Want a Piece Of Me? is first individual exhibition of Katarzyna Szymkiewicz, the winner of 16th edition of the Hestia Artistic Journey competition. The title refers to Britney Spears’s track dealing with famous pop star situation. The song visibly, but only by the way, refers to the young artist situation after its first prominent success. “Pieces” from the title, in a first place apply to Szymkiewicz’s artistic praxis. She considers her work in categories of elements, fragments, grains and scraps.
Szymkiewicz’s experiments involving painting and space go along with her thoughts settled in Open Form conception. Objects painted of canvas strung onto foam-cupboard constructions, are components with interactive potential. “Pieces” all together are forming compositions that are going through constant transformation. The artist, as a frenetic inventor, experimenter is mixing elements in order to get constellations of specific emotional/energetic qualities emerged from the style categories: form, shape and colour. This visual chemistry exists at the junction of several mediums: drawing, sculpture, object, installation. The You Want a Piece Of Me exhibition is attempt of freezing Szymkiewicz’s creative process. Forms fated for evolution will get second, third and other lives
Szymkiewicz’s art evokes the formalism, which along with other esthetics is turning into so called zombie abstraction. This term is defined through such contexts as place (USA), the spirit of nowadays era, technology development, digitization, new medias, new form of communication, changes in art market and new generation of collectors. If Szymkiewicz worked in America, she would have been easily inscribed into this postmodern trend. What makes the difference between her work and zombie art is vital thought standing next to attractive form.
