Karolina Zdunek .- Lost in Perspective
16/Sep/2010 - 06/Nov/2010
KAROLINA ZDUNEK has chosen Lost in Perspective as the title for her first solo show in Spain. This exhibition, with which the gallery Espacio Mínimo opens their 2010-2011 season, is composed of an extensive selection of Karolina’s latest pictorial works that, employing lineal perspective, create a complex and artificial weave of false perspectives that amply justifies the exhibition’s title.
The painting is understood by Karolina Zdunek as a means of referring to the senses; possessing a character that is both physical and sensual. Thanks to the use of the ancient medium of encaustic, whose thick impasto incites the viewer to feel the texture of the pieces, ZDUNEK’s paintings have the ability to exceed the barrier of distance and surpass the apparent frigidity of the represented forms. The visual appearance makes her work physically attractive, but her main interest lies in overcoming the limitations imposed by the two-dimensionality of painting, an issue that has been of concern to artists since ancient times. As a new follower of Piero della Francesca and Giorgio de Chirico, KAROLINA ZDUNEK utilizes linear perspective and, inspired by Italo Calvino, creates artistic representations of fantastic cities that express the eternal desire to achieve heaven on earth. Captured in hallways that lead nowhere and architectural elements that evoke a vision of the city as a self-sufficient mechanism, the paintings thus become a utopia without a trace of human presence, only created to be experienced by the senses of man.
This search by KAROLINA ZDUNEK for utopia through imaginary urban visions has evolved in her later works through her representation of a supernatural space where mysterious trapdoors, crossroads or evocative views inspired by early computer games draw the viewer into a parallel reality. An infinite space that defies the obvious limitations of bi-dimensionality, on which the complete farce of representations does not prevent us of being seduced by them.
KAROLINA ZDUNEK (Kielce, Polonia, 1978), studied from 1998 to 2003 at the Academy of Fine Arts of Warsaw where she obtained the Best Graduate Scholarship in 2003. In 2002 she won first prize in the sculpture competition “Freedom. Peace. Beauty” organized by Eurocentrum in Poland. In 2004/2005 she was awarded a special prize as an artist of the Ministry of Culture in Warsaw. In 2005 she obtained the grand prize in the Biennial of Painting “Bielska Autumn”.
She has regularly exhibited individually and collectively since 2001 in Polish galleries and in other parts of Europe like Lokal_30 in its headquarters in Warsaw and London as well as institutions like Zacheta National Gallery in Warsaw. She has also participated in various international contemporary art fairs like Art Forum Berlin, Liste in Basel, ZOO Art Fair in London, Vienna Fair en Vienna, Nada Miami and Tokyo Contemporary Art Fair.
KAROLINA ZDUNEK lives and works in Warsaw, Poland.
