Agata Gertchen was born in Rawicz (Poland) in 1985. She graduated with an MA in Graphic Arts and Graphic Design from the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw, Poland. In 2016 she obtained a PhD degree. Currently she is employed at the position of an Assistant Professor in the Studio of Intaglio Printing (the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw, Poland). Her favorite techniques are linocut, mezzotint and drawing.
She has presented her works at over seventy exhibitions in Poland and eighty abroad (United States, Russia, Australia, Canada, Sweden, France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, Serbia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Slovakia, China, Macedonia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Latvia, India, Iran, Spain, Italy, Romania, Scotland). She presented seventeen individual exhibitions.
She is the winner of over twenty awards and distinctions. The most important of them comprise the following:
• 2nd Award Prix Desjardins at the 10th Biennale internationale d’estampe contemporaine de Trois-Rivières, Canada (2017)
• The Award of the Tadeusz Kulisiewicz Fundation at the International Print Triennial MTG − Cracow 2015, Poland (2015)
• Best Print Award at SGCI Members Exchange Portfolio within SGC International Conference in Knoxville, TN, USA (2015)
• The Grand Prix of the 7th International Triennial of Graphic Art − Bitola 2012, Macedonia (2012)
• 2nd Award at the 8th Polish Print Triennial in Katowice, Poland (2012)
• First prize for graphics at Osten, 38th World Gallery of Art on Paper in Skopje, Macedonia (2010)
• The Grand Prix of the 12th European Biennial Competition for Graphic Art in Brugge, Belgium (2009)
CREDO
In my work, I consistently focus on work that fills our everyday life and an object inseparably connected with it. Looking at my realisations, it can be noticed how my approach to depicting has changed over the years. Initially, these were quite realistic representations made in the linocut technique, but with time I have become more interested in the work performed by a given object - its function, mode of operation and time.
I persistently analyse everyday life, which in its routine is often underestimated. I am inspired by ordinary activities and common things. In my works, I try to prove that we are too close to everyday things to really comprehend them. It is an illusion that we know everything about them and that we cannot learn anything more. That is why I constantly attempt to be alert and sensitive to what surrounds me. Analysing trivial and everyday objects has become a bonding point for my entire artistic oeuvre to this date.
