Monika Misztal With Closed Eyes

Monika Misztal

With Closed Eyes

When Monika Misztal sets to work, her eyes are wide open. She knows what she wants to see in the painting – what she needs and must show in it. Her expressive style of painting could easily be mistaken for bold freedom. In reality, it is underpinned by artistic and existential radicalism and an uncompromising approach to art.

The exhibition ‘With Closed Eyes’ presents Misztal's latest, premiere works. None of these paintings have been invented. They are all real. The artist saw them with her own closed eyes and painted them from memory, in a process of confrontation with her experiences, emotions, memories and hopes.

In the face of Monika Misztal's art, the question of the relationship between the creative person and their work returns. Are they one and the same, or two independent entities? The author of ‘With Closed Eyes’ is a charismatic artistic personality. This makes it all the more tempting to view her painting in the light of her biography – a story in which the history of extraordinary talent is intertwined with trauma, illness, ups and downs. This narrative provides an explanation for her dramatic expression. However, if we resort to such an interpretation, we risk allowing the artist's biography to overshadow the paintings she created.

So how should we look at the artist's works in order to truly see them?

Indeed, the paintings in the exhibition ‘With Closed Eyes’ contain autobiographical themes. They are hidden in still lifes, portraits, images of animals, objects, and fragments of landscapes. Motifs taken from life completely fill the frames, bursting with bold painterly gestures and vibrant colours – as if we were viewing everything in close-up, exaggerated and enlarged. Perhaps from a distance, these elements could form a coherent story, but Monika shortens the distance – she does not allow us to take in the whole picture. She does not show us her life, but her art. If she reworks her own experiences on canvas – if she confesses them – it is only to herself. She invites the public to an exhibition of paintings that she has created not because of suffering, but in spite of it. Through her art, Misztal fights for herself, but not only for herself. Her paintings are beautiful because each of them represents a victory in this struggle, and at the same time a reflection of the struggles that each and every one of us faces in various dimensions of life.

Curator: Stach Szabłowski

Opening: 17 October 2024 at 6 p.m.
Exhibition: 18 October - 14 November 2024