Alicja Kubicka

Pictor-optimus,-akryl,-gwasz,-kredka-na-płótnie,-200x300-cm,--2018

Alicja Kubicka’s work is full-blooded painting. Often self-referential, it builds mysterious, sometimes intricate narrations. By asking questions about the medium, exploring the role of painting and the artist, Kubicka creates ambiguous, oneiric spaces. It is hard to find obviousness in the pictures. The provenance of the strange universe is unclear, the whole thing balances deftly on the border of painting abstraction and representation, finding its own, unique place. The monumental formats of some of the works and colourful surfaces constituting them attest to courage and artistic maturity. However, the majesty of the abstractions and raw surfaces of colour are insistently squeezed by Kubicka into what sometimes appears as almost naïve representation, attempting to be anchored in some kind of reality. The moment we realize that the author, wooing with colour, line and large sizes, has in fact stealthily framed us to become one of the painter dwarfs from Tony Wolf’s Woodland Folk series, we have to surrender. The loftiness of confrontation with “great painting” seems do dissipate in favour of reflection on the medium and – to take it a step further – on the visible world. In its suspension, Kubicka’s painting leaves the viewer in a similar state. It deprives us not only of answers, but even reasonable questions. An intellectual solution to the riddles may at most cause a headache – here, wisdom is expressed in the language of the eye and hand. Kubicka is undoubtedly a reflective artist, seeking more than sheer content in painting, but also expression and mood associated with the language of the medium. As a painter, she is perverse but also careful in avoiding what has become trendy recently – the banal painterly jokes.

Marcin Zawicki

www.alicjakubicka.com

Education

• 2012 – 2017 Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Gdańsku, Wydział Malarstwa

Individual Exhibitions

• 2018 mal, we współpracy z Magdaleną Pelą, WL4 Mleczny Piotr, Gdańsk
• 2018 Zestaw malarski, BWA Galeria Miejska w Bydgoszczy
• 2018 Lasst du dich überraschen, kuratorka: Agata Nowosielska, Galeria Żak, Gdańsk
• 2017 Jeden z drugim myśli, że malować to takie proste i staromodne, we współpracy z Sylwestrem Gałuszką, Kolonia Artystów-Dolne Miasto, Gdańsk

Collective Exhibitions

• 2019 A3, TuBaza, Gdynia
• 2019 Bardzo dobrze, Warszawa
• 2018 Komunikacja ze wszystkim co jest, Fundacja Stefana Gierowskiego, Warszawa
• 2018 Wpis ukończony, kuratorzy: Andrzej Karmasz, Marcin Zawicki, Zbrojownia Sztuki, Gdańsk
• 2017 Najlepsze dyplomy, Zbrojownia Sztuki, Gdańsk
• 2016 blisko-daleko, Gdańska Galeria Miejska, Gdańsk