Broadway Gallery, Letchworth
25 February—4 April 2022
Curator: Kristian Day
Through this series of oil paintings and drawings made during the Letchworth Residency Gluszak-Holeksa continued to explore the visual and conceptual discoveries of the small works made for the Correspondence 01 exhibition in August 2021. Starting with the process of removing, distilling and simplifying her painting methodology, igniting new questions related to the use of the cool colour palette, blurriness vs sharp edges, abstraction and structuring the composition around light and shadow. Throughout the residency Gluszak-Holeksa explored being in a new space, both literally and mentally after lockdown, the experience of living between cultures and countries, in-between the inner and outer spaces and the past and the present as a state of being.
During the residency the studio space became a place of reflection and conversation between the artist and gallery visitors, who very often would find the paintings to be the triggers of contradictory sensations of familiarity and ambiguity. These led to intimate discussions that created connections between the artist’s and the audience’s experiences, which fed back into the paintings, shaping their outcomes and allowing her to view them in new, unexpected ways.
The title of the exhibition is inspired by a quote from a book ‘The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World’ (1997, Abram, D.). The mountain in this context not only becomes a metaphor of a non–human language and animism, but also links back to an actual physical space of the region where Gluszak-Holeksa grew up—a place, which metaphorically becomes ‘the other’ and the unfamiliar. Her background in photography, with experience of colour darkroom practices and experiments, feeds into the painterly metamorphosis of digital collages that the artist will “sketch” prior to starting the work on canvas. In these cinematic compositions, through the mix of darker shades of Prussian Blue, Ultramarine and Phthalo Green, combined with blurry highlights and fading objects, she aims to evoke a sense of “softening”, an edge of perception, which gives way to something what might seem like it belongs to a memory or to a place beyond our current awareness.
Source: Broadway Gallery (2022) press release excerpt
大河美術 River Art Gallery, Taichung
15 June—3 August 2024
The Airy Disk, a fundamental concept in all optical systems, is an element we encounter every day as soon as we open our eyes. The human eye is essentially like a lens of a certain size, and when light enters the eye, it inevitably produces countless Airy Disks on the retina. These Airy Disks, when superimposed upon each other, form the unforgettable images in our brains. Though an optical phenomenon, the Airy disk also possesses a certain “physicality.” The process of overall interaction leading to the output and transmission to the brain involves subtle emotions and physical memories. This show highlights artists as the eyes of people, perceive and experience the world from different angles, like various lenses, slicing through bodily incisions, the nuances of inner emotions, and even many aspects of life and social issues. They then combine these fragments of memory or fleeting glimpses of everyday life, transcending sensory levels and elevating to the inner spiritual realm.
Magdalena Gluszak - Holeksa's works aim to transform certain ambiguous and symbolic entities. The cool tones like deep green and blue hues, characteristic of her works, respond to the nocturnal atmosphere of her upbringing while retaining elements of personal photography, images, and intuitive sketches. This hints at the symbiosis and exchange between life and death, prompting the artist to question the hierarchies of outer and inner realms.
Through this exhibition, our focus is on the process of objects being interpreted by artists and rendered into images to engage in dialogue and interaction with the audience, facilitating an exploration of the interaction between the so-called “body,” “senses,” and “spirit.” As the basic unit of imaging, Airy Disk, like cells, symbolizes the indispensable element of artists in contemporary society. The viewers are invited to seek shared resonance, becoming the focal points of their own life journeys.
Source: 大河美術River Art Gallery (2024) press release excerpt
OHSH Projects, London
22 March—22 April 2023
Since April 2021 OHSH Projects has been exhibiting artists in Central London in an area that was once a hub for artistic creatives but has largely been decimated by rent increases and economic turmoil. Artists have been forced to relocate further and further to the outskirts of the city including south of the river and for our first exhibition in this area we feel it is important to spotlight the South London artistic community.
Our South Open exhibition invited emerging artists to respond to an open call for artists who live, work or studied in South London. We are delighted to be exhibiting work by graduates of the Royal College of Art, Wimbledon College of Arts and Goldsmith’s College, all South London institutions. The artists exhibited in the exhibition also have studios in Brixton, Peckham and Woolwich. Bringing these artists together reflects our endeavour to illuminate the breadth of talent across the artistic community south of the river.
Source: OHSH Projects (2023) press release excerpt
Broadway Gallery, Letchworth
October 2021—February 2022
During her residency Magdalena is creating a new body of work that explores the liminal spaces within communications between human and non–human and how a personified language of ‘the other’, particularly nature, becomes a metaphor and a way of creating ways of knowing. Some images and thoughts make home within us, stay with us and become the prism through which we perceive the world–even when they weren’t our experience in the first place. The living bodies–of plants and our own human ones–inherit past traumas, dreams and stories of the previous generations. Through her new works Magdalena wants to explore how we lean into the unknown by adding layers of meaning and create emotional “anchors”, which helps us navigate between what is on the inside and outside, as well as between the past and present.
Source: Broadway Gallery (2021) press release