November 27, 2021
Opening day: Saturday, November 27, 2021, 12-8pm
27.11.2021 – 21.01.2022
Curator: Katarzyna Krysiak
Izabela Chamczyk’s exhibition TOXIC will be a premiere presentation of “performative paintings,” a category conceived by the artist. It will be accompanied by a video montage showing the successive stages of the making of the individual works, all of which date from the last two years.
Performative painting is processual and sensual in nature. It arises over time, through the artist’s actions, using her own, unique technique, then in the course of transformations occurring in the structure and form of the surface of the painting itself, during the spilling, dripping, stretching, and finally in the process of the hardening of the paints and resins, which already beyond the artist’s control. The result is an organic painting/object that bursts out of the surface of the canvas, sometimes almost “exploding” towards the viewer. What is the essence here, however, is not the finite work, but rather the process of its formation, which is why recording the successive sequences through photography or video is equally important for Chamczyk as the work itself.
“Photographs documenting painting actions become stories about something that could be called the physiology of pictures, and a physiology in an experimental version, conducted in the artist’s own studio/laboratory. These are stories about the functioning of painterly organisms and about the forcible materiality, or even corporeality, of paints,” writes Grzegorz Borkowski about these works.
Chamczyk emphasizes also the immense importance of colour in her paintings. Colour, for her, is the principal medium of everything that she wants to express. Moods, spiritual states are enchanted in it. In this context, the title of the show relates not only to the chemical fumes of the substances that she worked with when painting, but also speaks potently about the accompanying emotional states.
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Izabela Chamczyk is a painter, performer, and video artist. In 2009, she graduated cum laude with a major in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław; she also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań in the studio of Dominik Lejman.
Chamczyk makes processual, sensual, emotional art that refers to sexuality and corporeality. She has coined the term “performative painting,” combining the picture with an ongoing performance. She works in multiple media, redefining their boundaries, confronting herself and entering in a living dialogue with the audience, which involves strong emotions. Through her art, she seeks to reach through to the realm of the outside world, beyond the gallery.
She is a three-time recipient of grants from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, a finalist of prestigious competitions, such as the Vordemberge–Gildewart Foundation Competition at the MOCAK, the Hestia Artistic Journey Competition, the “Bielsko Autumn” Painting Biennale, the Eugeniusz Geppert Competition in Wrocław, or the Triennial of Young Artists in Orońsko. She has participated in individual and group exhibitions and projects at venues such as the Foksal Gallery (Warsaw), SCC Gallery (Isfahan, Iran), Musrara Festival (Israel), Zachęta Project Room (Warsaw), Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw), Gierowski Foundation (Warsaw), Entropia Gallery (Wrocław), Biała Gallery and Labirynt Gallery (both Lublin), GSW (Opole), BWA Zielona Góra, CSW Toruń, Mosart (Gorzów Wielkopolski), “Contexts” International Festival of Ephemeral Art (Sokołowsko), or ERARTA Festival (Sankt Petersburg, Russia).
Her works are in many public and corporate collections, such as those of PKO Bank Polski, Andel’s Hotel, Ergo Hestia, CSW Toruń, Dolnośląska Zachęta Wrocław, or the Performance Archive of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, as well as in numerous private collections in Poland and abroad.
