Oil, canvas; 48 x 65 cm
Signed and dated on back: NIKA PORC/ INSTRUCTION/ ACRYLIC ON/ CANVAS/ 2022
Painting graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. After a series of well
well-received exhibitions, she decided to completely disassociate herself from her previous artistic output
artistic output. She inaugurated a new stage of creative work in 2022 with the exhibition
"Wesołyje kartinki / Merry pictures" at Square Art gallery in Bytom. Presented
series, which was a painterly reaction to the hostilities in Ukraine and the related
experience of violence, had a continuation in October 2023 at the gallery
Engram (Katowice City of Gardens) in an exhibition titled "Kartinki".
The exhibition "Paint in Black" at Gallery u Kosałki launched another series of works - an
interdisciplinary project, the starting point of which is a reflection on the feeling of
fear and loneliness in the modern world. In it, the artist introduces the figure of
Mickey Mouse, one of the most recognizable symbols of pop culture, confronting
its cultural significance with the emotional tension of current reality.
"Merry kartinki (Merry pictures)" is a series of painting works, the starting point of which
became photographs documenting the first 150 days of the war in Ukraine.
The artist reached for both amateur and reporter photos, as well as digitally generated
satellite images from the battlefield. In selecting the visual material, she grappled with
questions that go beyond the realm of painting: how to present the conflict in the
as objectively as possible, knowing that the available sources - for obvious
reasons - come exclusively from the Ukrainian and allied side, and Russian
news channels are covered by censorship? Each photo was an image
mediated, not only through the medium, but also through the specific point of view of
of its author. The process of selecting and interpreting the material thus also became a work of
on the very possibility of representing war.
The title of the series refers to the popular USSR-era children's magazine "Veselye
kartinki" - an illustrated magazine, which under the guise of sympathetic
stories served a propaganda function. It created a vision of reality in line with the
ideological line, shaping the image of the world for the youngest citizens of the Soviet bloc.
Today, in the shadow of the new war, the overtones of this title take on an ironic and sinister character
character.
In the painting "Instruction" - the artist painterly transforms the Russian instructions for creating mass graves. The composition, with an economical form and strongly reduced colors, shocks with its coldness and ruthlessness. The use of blue color - evoking associations with the color of the dead body in Andrzej Wróblewski's work - enhances the effect of vulnerability and alienation. The work puts the viewer in the position of witnessing a soulless process in which a person is reduced to a technical problem, an element of war logistics. This is not a reality we want to participate in, and yet we are part of it - as a community of nations, as witnesses.
