MONIKA SMYŁA / Witchcraft / Witches’ Tower
MONIKA SMYŁA
Witchcraft
Exhibition:
21.10 – 31.12.2016
Witches’ Tower, Słupsk / al. F. Nullo 8 / Słupsk
Opening:
20.10.2016 / 6 p.m.
Centre for Creative Activities / ul. Gen. Zaruskiego 1a /Ustka
Documentation
Monika Smyła
The exhibition Witchcraft is a continuation of a series of activities that explore the gaps between nature and culture. Living organisms or their imitations introduced into the gallery space blow its framework, breaking accepted orders, but they do it in a subtle, almost imperceptible way. Interventions are carried out on micro scale which is the institution of art. The gallery space of the Witches’ Tower and the history associated with this building become the starting point for reflection on art as a cognitive tool. The artist explores the existing structure, ‘disarming’ it in steps that could be compared to magic treatment. Abandoning logic in favour of absurd random situations allows the artist to examine the causality of phenomena. Artistic activity is treated here as an ad hoc response to the areas of life and human activity that have been not explained so far.
Monika Smyła was born in 1985; she is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and a doctoral student at the faculty of arts of the Pedagogical University in Kraków. She combines her interest in plants with contemporary art. She paints, makes embroidery, and create s objects and installations. She participated in many solo and group exhibitions, including The Roots, Spectra Art Space in Warsaw; Changing the position at Małopolska Cultural Centre Sokół, BWA gallery in Nowy Sącz; It’s hard to say at Szara Kamienica gallery in Cracow; Biennale of the Young ‘Fish Eye’, Small Gallery in Słupsk, and Clouds On Nails , Knoll Gallery, Vienna, Austria. She lives and works in Nowy Sącz.