Title: Act, Madonnas Cycle
Technique: acrylic&mix
Size: 40 cm x 40 cm Year: 2022

"Malina Wieczorek, who graduated with honors from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow in 1996, presents her artwork "ACT, Madonnas cycle" at the FUORI E-VENTO exhibition. This artistic creation has a striking chromatic impact, with red being the predominant color. The artist has used a significant amount of color to shape the central element of the artwork, creating a textured surface that is truly captivating. This choice gives the artwork a strong and immersive visual presence, inviting viewers to delve into its depth. "ACT, Madonnas cycle" recalls the works of Yves Klein, renowned for his bold and vibrant use of blue. However, Malina Wieczorek distinguishes herself by employing red as the main color. This choice gives the artwork a unique personality, conveying emotional intensity and passionate energy. The artwork goes beyond the visible surface, tapping into the essence of the color red itself. This color evokes a wide range of meanings and symbolism, such as love, passion, fire, and vital strength. Malina Wieczorek explores the emotional depth of red, conveying a powerful message through her artwork. "ACT, Madonnas cycle" by Malina Wieczorek is an artwork that invites viewers to fully immerse themselves in its chromatic dimension. The intense red captures attention and evokes a series of emotions and reflections. The artist demonstrates technical mastery and the ability to communicate through color, creating an artwork that leaves a lasting impression. In conclusion, "ACT, Madonnas cycle" by Malina Wieczorek is an artwork that stands out for its chromatic impact and the emotional depth it conveys through the color red. The artist offers a fresh perspective on the strength and power of red, engaging viewers in a captivating visual and sensory experience.

The art of Malina Wieczorek draws attention to the fact that the beauty of women and their strength lie within. The artist presents them in a characteristic way. He paints their shapes, focusing on the body, while the limbs are imperceptible. We can't see the face. Women in the painter's paintings seem uninhibited and naked, in the literal and metaphorical sense. We meet them in intimate situations where they should feel free. However, even then they are doomed to eternal observation and evaluation. Thus, one can get the impression that the artist really depicts women imprisoned in bodies, at the same time realizing that they can only be themselves in their souls, and that their true beauty and strength comes from within them. It is their only refuge where they can keep a piece of themselves. Part that does not submit to the rules, duties of a wife, mother, daughter and that allows them to be themselves.
In Malina Wieczorek's art, we find the archetype of a mother, a protector of her loved ones, like the mythological Demeter, as well as a warrior who, thanks to her inner strength, resists everyday obstacles. This work appears to be art of many meanings, presenting different faces of femininity. They are also stories about each of the women, entangled in adversities and challenges posed by everyday life, and whose main way to discover herself is not following the "ideal" and entangling herself in imposed norms, but realizing her inner strength that will give us freedom.

In the "Madonnas" series, the artist refers to the old local culture, replacing the halo with a folk pattern. Working with saturated color and abstract shape, the painter offers the viewer the possibility of individual interpretation. Femininity in Malina Wieczorek's paintings is multidimensional - it can be full of strength, vitality, as well as painful and deformed. Regardless of what she presents, the artist seems to bring hope that by discovering ourselves, in the whole palette of colors - both light and dark - we reach the truth, which on some level is also beauty.


Why was a woman at the center of your artistic interests?
For me as a painter, women's bodies provide a greater palette to ponder about the truth of life.
Women are mothers, lovers, but also ephemeral saints or people following their own paths. Maybe because I am a woman myself, I give myself the right to some deformations and simplifications. Searching for what cannot be seen. It's a bit of an experience on its own. Women have been a source of discussion for centuries - what matters, soul or beauty? What is beauty really? Because everyone sees and understands it differently.
Maybe it's about courage in constantly asking the most important questions about the beginning of existence, about giving life and its later meaning. Everyone has their own answers, and they often change at different stages. The same is true with literature. When reading a book or the same poem years later, with a different experience, we understand it differently, what we are looking for in the text is different. For example, my series "Filia non viva" - once about difficult experiences, today about constant rebirth in life, in the physical and spiritual layer, about the enormous strength that lies in man.

What is your definition of femininity?
It's magic. Such a merging space, at the same time strong and delicate, unyielding and open to life. Each edition is worth attention, each teaches and inspires something. I know that women have great power to overcome difficulties. But let's not forget that at the other extreme we also have the extremely important male element. We carry a lot of quality and only by merging these two energies together, we achieve harmony.
Is femininity a strength or a weakness?
For me, as I mentioned, both. These nudes painted by me show our true selves. A whole range of feelings. For example, in the “Madonnas” series, I refer to the classic iconography and identity associated with ancient culture, redefining the way of depicting the halo. She often hurts the heroine's body, but does it weaken her? In my opinion, it makes a warrior who is not afraid of the meanders of life, who turns weakness into strength. Another trope of meanings are the cycles present in women's lives. As in nature. Halos turn into flower meadows around my Madonnas. But also in the "Filia non viva" collection, where in order to come back to life, you first have to die. Without it, it is impossible for spring and summer to come, before winter must come. All this is also shown in colors, in delicacy and power, in everything at once and separately.

We are all repeating the same story of creation. All we can do is try deeper and deeper to understand who we are. That's what the Madonna series is all about. My Madonnas refer to both classical iconography and identity related to the old local culture. I replaced the halo from classic paintings with a pattern made of folk rollers, sometimes this halo is somewhere on the side, redefining the way it is shown and asking the question what really builds it. One can get the impression that these patterns irritate the body, cut into it and even hurt. Other times they are like a flower meadow around the heroines of the picture. It is this ambiguity and the possibility of self-interpretation, depending on the moment of life, own history, mood in which the recipient finds himself, that is the most interesting. These are stories about each of us - about strength, love, sometimes sacrifice... About protecting those we love. About the questions in which directions a modern woman must follow to achieve her ideal and true self?


6. And that is why you deliberately present silhouettes of women's bodies without a head to show, or maybe even manifest, that the female ideal is often limited to corporeality?

They don't have the most important part of the human body - the head - because I don't want to take away their identity. This can be compared to the prohibition of photographing people's faces in some cultures - according to beliefs, it can steal their soul. For me, the framing is such that the head often occupies this space outside the picture or in the inner frame, so the lack of a head is just an illusion. The written work is a fragment of a story, a sign of a given time, we do not control it in its entirety, we can only read it intuitively. He cannot be enslaved, he has freedom within himself.

8. Have you been creating nudes all your life? Is it a search for the universal truth about life, or perhaps a search for an ideal form of artistic expression?

In my work, I constantly wonder whether these deformations, defragmentations, which in real life mark our paths, mean ugliness or beauty. Perhaps without them there would be no development. The nudes I create are an encouragement to answer the question: when are we the most beautiful, the fullest, what is life for, why was it all created and who does it? My work is like going back to the beginning of existence.


What do you want to convey through art?
Art is an element of beauty brought to life that always evokes emotions. It calms or provokes. Having paintings at home, we naturally resonate with them. Without this layer, life becomes poor. I also want to encourage discussion about what the recipient sees in the image, and everyone has a different perception. Or noticing symbolism, for example in the paintings of early Renaissance masters, full of details, where every arch in architecture, folds in dresses or arranged fruit mean something. This understanding of the world is extremely important. When it comes to my art, I like to listen to reflections on the message of specific images. I am often surprised myself. Therefore, it is an encouragement to discuss the truth of our "I", not only female, but also human. Let me give you an example, my series "Lips and Other Imponderabilia" is a search for the multiplicity of our identities in fragments of wrinkles on the lips, tiny furrows that roughly build drawings on our bodies. It's fun, but seriously.