Art = freedom.In one of her first video-art works Joanna Wodzicka introduces a character of an abstract dancer, painted in stripes, shaping herself in crooked poses, black-and-white stripes flashed among the same-colored background making the eyes sting. Like a free,...
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Art = freedom.
In one of her first video-art works Joanna Wodzicka introduces a character of an abstract dancer, painted in stripes, shaping herself in crooked poses, black-and-white stripes flashed among the same-colored background making the eyes sting. Like a free, creative thought of an artist she moved in her own way, full of tension but also inner peace.
In her early years as a painter Joanna was taught by Piotr Szmitke, a contemporary artist, founder of Metaweryzm. Meanwhile, designing an interior of a jazz club, which included wall paintings, oil and pastels she got to know some of the young and promising jazz musicians of the Music Academy in Katowice. Freedom, abstraction and improvisation of jazz has strongly influenced Joanna’s painting: both in terms of abstract form and the sole action of painting.
In 2006 she started at the Academy of Fine Art in Krakow, but shortly moved to the UK to study at the Chelsea College of Art &Design, UAL. Since 2007 she became interested in video-art and performance art. Her student work criticizes consumerism with its easy pleasures and contrasts it with creativity as a way to find pure, true things in life and above all, achieve personal freedom.
Working currently as an entrepreneur, she lives in Katowice, an industrial part of southern Poland. Tied to work duties almost non-stop, she constantly tries to separate from business and paperwork, escape the city. The industrial, raw, dangerous outside is negated by warm colours and closed composition of Joanna’s paintings, revoking home comfort and safety. As if the world surrounding her did not exist. Close to her parents and sister, she makes them a subject of portraits, detached from reality of constant work, everyday stress and routine. The aim of Joanna’s painting is to forget the busy agglomeration, overflowing e-mailbox and ever-ringing phone. Bright, sunny colours of her paintings are a sign of a big dream, a future where everything will settle down and she would find her peace.
Her early abstract work was awarded at the International Biennale of Contemporary Artistic Textile ‘Silezjany 2001’. In 2005 she had her work exhibited in Warsaw among 100 finalists of Painting of the Year competition. During the years in London her video-art was screened at the Whitechapel Gallery, another has received the first award at the Italian Cultural Institute in London.
With time, Joanna’s work increasingly focuses on an individual and their inside: the strong feelings of fear, pain, uncertainty and the struggle of a human being. Her drawings started to show sad, tired bodies, often crying and bent, crouched or torn.