CURATORIAL PROGRAMME #9
Ewa Goral. TOTEM
31.07–31.08.2023
The canvases exhibited from the street side hang freely in the rooms of the Dzielna Foundation. The artist who created her paintings dreams of a world free from the constraints and destructive influence of humanity. Her intervention can be seen for four weeks in August, when the growing season in nature reaches its peak.
The works, which Ewa Goral refers to as “totems,” are created outdoors and coloured with pigments of natural origin. The rudbeckia can be recognised by its red and brown tones. The ocher and yellow tones come from birch bark and turmeric. Yarrow provides shades of green. The pavement mushroom contributes browns, wild blueberry offers purples, and turkey tail and inky cap provide greys and blacks. The plants and fungi from which the dyes were extracted were collected from urban wastelands, including those near the banks of the Vistula River.
For the artist, it was important to create her works with minimal impact on the environment. She primed the canvases with soy milk. She limited the use of chemicals to ferrous sulfate to expand her colour palette. She also eliminated stretcher bars so she could transport her works in a backpack.
Ewa Goral (born in 1984, Tychy) studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. For over a decade, she has been exploring themes related to plant representation, biodiversity, and climate change in her art. Her canvas works take the form of non-anthropocentric figurations, which reflect her personal connection with nature. Filtered through her imagination, observations become ambiguous hybrids at the border between fantasy and reality. The artist draws inspiration from literature, ethnobotanical expeditions, meetings with scientists, and walks through the forest. She lives and works in Warsaw.
The intervention is available 24/7 in the vitrines of the Dzielna Foundation.
