Painting – Marta Kunikowska-Mikulska

”Mysterious creatures inhabiting the folklore imagination appear in the works of Marta Kunukowska-Mikulska as women who try to express their emotions : fear, anger, loneliness. As primitive beings they use traditional methods as cry or dance. The greek triune choreia used to work in a similar way. And this is the way we say goodbye to the carnaval in the present-day Rio de Janeiro. Even though the depiction of figures is very exact, almost hyperrealistic, the intensive light moves them away from the real, revealing that they come from a world more mysterious than the one we live in. Instead of calming and relaxing the viewer, the bright lighting causes concern and anxiety, that is often intensified by an untypical perspective. Similar themes and perspective shortcuts were used by Jacek Malczewski – his chimeras, thanatos and angels emerging from polish landscape were writing their own mythology. The figures painted by Marta Kunikowska-Mikulska aren’t as faint, etherial and ephemeral as the creatures beloved by Young Poland period artists. Her water nymphs and female swamp demons are very physical, often aged women. You can’t say they were nothing but a dream, a phantom or a play of light during a sunny afternoon. The emotions that torment them are very specific and sooner or later every human will have to face them.”

An exerpt from the text of Bogumila Pilecka

Marta Kunikowska-Mikulska was born on 23^rd July 1981 in Lodz. In the years 2000-2005 she studied at the Strzeminski Academy of Art in Lodz, at the Faculty of Graphics and Painting. In 2005 she earned a degree in applied graphics in the Studio of Lithography Techniques under prof. Witold Warzywoda. The appendix to this work was conceived in the Painting Studio under prof. Marian Kepinski. Marta Kunikowska-Mikulska finds inspiation for her work in Polish legends and folklore beliefs.