Agata Magdalena Sulikowska (born 1982, Namysłow, Poland), completed her university studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Wladyslaw Strzeminski in Łodz at the Faculty of Visual Education. In 2007 she received a diploma in the "Painting Studio" of prof. Ryszard Hunger and "Traditional Graphic Technique Studio" of prof. Tomasz Chojnacki in Poland. 2008/09, she belonged to the Irish group "Battery Heigts Art Group" in Athlone, and since 2015 is a member of Nord-Norske Bildende Kunstnere (NNBK) in Norway, and Troms fylkeskultursenter "Kysten" in Tromso, northern Norway, where she is established. She took part in numerous exhibitions in Poland and abroad, including: (2022) Residency at Mark Rothko Art Center, Daugavpils, Latvia, (2022) “Entangled Realities “,Ag18 Gallery, Vienna, Austria, (2022) Harstad Kunstforening, Norway, (2019)Urban Movement”, The Northen Lights Festival opening exhibition, Kulture House, Tromso, NO, (2019)“Man in The Public Space” – residency, Gallery Ask, Åsgårdstrand, NO,(2018) Festival Experiment – “Out of Cycle Province 18”, Art Centre Baszta, Zbaszyn, PL, (2018), II Przegląd Sztuki Współczesnej Nowa Awangarda, The Wilson Shaft Gallery, Katowice, PL, (2018), accepted to BIAS 2018, International Biennial of contemporary Sacred Art, ”La Porta”, Palermo, IT, (2018),
Grand Prix of The Franciszka Eibisch Foundation, Katarzyna Napiorkowska's Galleri, PL, (2017), IV Independent Salon of Łodz Young Artists, Museum of the City of Łodz, PL, (2017), "La Folie Des Grandeurs” - Agata M. Sulikowska & Nathanaël Gustin ", Beates Black Box, Kunstforening Tromsø, NO, (2017); "ART NOW", National Museum, Krakow, PL, (2016),"Temporary Memories", Pop-Up Gallery Veita Center, Tromso, NO, (2015), "2 = TO = OPEN TROMSO", Gamle Bangsundbrygga and Kysten Atelierelleskap Tromso, NO, (2014) "Proscenium Art Exhibition", Reeves Art Studio, Athlone, IE, (2010), "V Concurso Pintura Rapida Villa de Ibi ", Centro de Cultura, Ibi, ES, (2009)," Public Space Picture ", PROFIL Gallery, Poznan, PL, (2009)," Open Gallery ", Opus Gallery, Łodz, PL, (2004).
ARTIST STATEMENT
I’m a visual artist who works mainly with oil painting and documentary photography, and sometimes I makes short films from a mobile phone. From 2013 I moved to Northern Norway, Tromso. From 2007 I defended my diploma with honors at the Wladyslaw Strzeminski Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz/Poland. I took part in several exhibitions both in Poland and in abroad; and made numerous trips around the world on a bicycle, which had a significant impact on my artistic approach. My interest in the paintings coming from deep need to create an artwork that can stimulate viewer to reflect on the contemporary world that surrounds us and raise questions in viewer mind. The subject matter of the paintings between 2008-2019, oscillates around friendship, music, pleasure and everyday life of various people in their social and cultural environment, but since 2019, since the outbreak of the pandemic Covid 19, my works have been moving more into symbolic and surreal scenery, using my own stream of consciousness, which I became more interested in thanks to the literature of Virginia Woolf. From that moment, I draws my inspiration from dreams, historical events and news in the world. In the process of creating an image, in artist mind shows various associations in the stream of consciousness that stimulate the imagination and emotions. It may be a fragment of a book or shapes emerging from the paint strokes; an ordinary thought that appears in the head at a given moment in connection with a newspaper
article, which the artist is reading during the break, or a chance meeting in the corridor to the toilet with someone who could evoke certain emotions in the artist, in psychology called sublimation, which is unconscious defence mechanisms, consisting in pushing back an unacceptable drive for creativity. The artist personal life experiences and the uncertain times in which we live now invite the viewer and myself to reflect on being here and now, to also perceive the works of art in the same way, and to appreciate the present moment.
Currently, I use the works of the old masters from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (to give some: William Hogarh, Thomas Couture, Jacques-Louis David), or even later artists such as „Breakfast on the Grass” by Edouard Manet. By making painting copies of known masters, I makes my own, contemporary interpretation of these artworks, thus tries to literally emphasise and reflect on how the historical experience is passed (consciously or unconsciously) to the next generation and how it influences cultural identity, the nationality of the group, the individuals and myself.
