Born in 1967 in Krakow, where she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts. She got her Ph.D. degree in the Intermedia Department, presenting the doctoral thesis: The Semiosphere of my City. An independent artist, she creates paintings, drawings and...
Read MoreBorn in 1967 in Krakow, where she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts.
She got her Ph.D. degree in the Intermedia Department, presenting the doctoral thesis: The Semiosphere of my City. An independent artist, she creates paintings, drawings and animation films, touching upon the issues of social importance and frequently referring to artistic and scientific syncretism. Her pieces of art are maintained within the aesthetics of comics and New Expression.
The artist’s works reveal sincerity and courage in depicting social issues (like women’s rights, freedom and independence of man). She regularly exhibits in Poland and abroad and is active in public media. In 2020 the artist was awarded with the scholarship of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Still living in Krakow, where she creates at her atelier located at 8 Wiślna Street -
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She is the daughter of Marian Siwek, an outsider artist (1937-2007) who opposed to the political regime binding in Poland until 1989. Both artists – father and daughter – are linked by a figure of a man, common attempt to depict the truth and the correlation between the artist and moral attitudes of the society. What is important is what exists, what is really happening.
The latest works of the artist (2020) include a cycle of collages composed of printouts (or the originals) of her father’s works and her own original drawings. The collages are an attempted dialogue between the two generations of artists: the one of the father and the one of the daughter. Iwona reaches for her father’s selected works from 1970-2000 in order to re-communicate him with today’s audience and the newly defined reality. That is why she inserts her own drawings into her father’s works, in response to the themes raised by Marian Siwek several decades ago – themes so valid today, as if taken out from our present life. The collages are like a mirror of our reality and their artistic content resembles a reporter’s record of the latest global events. The collages were shown at a solo exhibition "Iwona Siwek-Front #siwek2siwek" in October 2020, at PRYZMAT GALLERY / Association of Polish Artists, Cracow.
In the age of the society with higher and higher self-esteem, in the age of turbo-fast pace of life but at the same time with the dynamic of the hazards brought by the pandemic, the following questions arise: where do the extremes lead to? Is anxiety teaching us anything? Is the content of normal, daily life the greatest value in the modern society? Where is the brain of today, where is our thinking, where is empathy? Do contemporary men push the luxury out of their comfort zone in the name of love and freedom – those two fundamental values?
(Iwona Siwek-Front is the owner of Marian Siwek’s works, image and copyright).
