„Before
the autumn's dawn”
2016. This is the first
work of the series, created just after the protests on September 25,
2016. It was a dark day for all Polish women.
"Polish Daughters" is a series of works created under the influence of the events of September 23, 2016. On that day, the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Poland rejected the civic draft of the act of the Committee to Save Women, liberalizing the abortion law. The answer to this was the organization of Black Monday - a protest action that took place simultaneously in 147 Polish cities. On September 25, 2016, 9 demonstrations under the slogan "Black Protest" were organized in the largest Polish cities. The project aroused enormous opposition, and the Black Protest, the National Women's Strike and other related initiatives managed to lead hundreds of thousands of women in the streets of cities. Under the influence of this pressure, the parliamentary majority decided to abandon work on the bill. But the topic of a complete ban on abortion kept coming back.
As a result, politicized by the PIS government, the Constitutional Tribunal, which on October 22, 2020 stated during the meeting that abortion due to "a high probability of severe and irreversible impairment of the fetus or an incurable disease that threatens its life" is inconsistent with the Polish Constitution. The artist asks whether the state has the right to impose an oppressive law on us, the traumatic effects of which may last until the end of the mother's or a fetus' life.
Polish women have long struggled with restrictive abortion laws, limited access to sexual and reproductive health care and information, and even access to contraception, insufficient care and support in the face of violence, and the perpetuation of traditionally assigned social roles. The Polish government and the Catholic Church in Poland openly oppose the concept of "gender" and "genderism", describing the promotion of gender equality as a "gender ideology", which they demonize as a driving force of hypersexuality, homosexuality, feminism, transsexualism and as an attack on the traditional understanding of marriage and family.
The series of works "Polish Daughters" is a manifesto against the objectification of women in Poland. The women in the paintings are part of the background, the landscape, they are absent, they do not challenge the viewer. Their invisibility, transparency, is emphasized by the lack of presentation of the eyes. Contrary to the above manifesto, these works are not presented in terms of the fighting avant-garde, but presenting the problem in a strictly feminine way. The external order and silence is accompanied by a blaze of thoughts, feelings, contrasts and concern for the future of oneself and of the family. These thoughts are sometimes trivial, but they often lead to loneliness , fateful decisions about one's life. Abortion is one of those extremely final, traumatic decisions, but it gives the feeling that when you realize you are unable to bear your own fate, there is a choice, even if it is only theoretical.
