Magdalena Gluszak - Holeksa

Throughout her practice, Magdalena searches for a language to explore impermanence, memory and time. The process of transforming through painting becomes an inquiry into ritual and symbolism-becoming familiar with the hidden, the uncertain and the uncontrollable. She is interested in opposites, such as hope and loss, the tension between them, and how these conflicting yet harmonizing notions influence the painting process and composition. Shifting between awareness and the subconscious, she wrestles with memories that slip her control and with knowledge that exists beyond her senses.

She is drawn to cool colour palettes, which echo the nocturnal moods of the natural environment where she grew up. Her compositions merge elements of nature, interiors and body details, retaining traces of personal photography, found images and intuitively made drawings. The organic forms merge elements of both still life and landscape, evoking the symbiosis and exchange between the dead organic matter and the living.

In this way, her paintings become extensions of personal rituals: collecting, reassembling and photographing dried flowers to incorporate their presences into her work. Never being fully one thing or another, but constantly evolving, these new memory landscapes reflect the idea of grief as perception, continually disrupting and altering her view of reality. Personal narratives and depth psychology inform the world-building in her work. Memories, conversations and stories become forms and symbols, creating landscapes that are both familiar and unfamiliar, emerging with their own logic.