Magdalena Gluszak–Holeksa

Magdalena is a Polish visual artist based in Hertfordshire. Through painting she explores human speculation of the ‘unknown’ and the processes of making the unfamiliar familiar, as experienced in the pursuit of human identity. She is interested in the transformative tension of being ‘in-between’ in relation to memory and space. Merging the lines between fiction and reality, her works resist clear interpretation, reflecting a non – linear approach to the suggested narratives and metaphors.

The natural environment is a central feature of her childhood memories, which became deeply intertwined with her exploration of identity and space. Through the alchemical process of painting, she explores the mechanics of inherited beliefs and thoughts, which become personified as they inhabit dream - landscapes within her works. In her approach to painting any sense of control over forms and colours continually evolves and shifts, allowing for the tension to emerge between shadows and electric colours, fluid forms and ambiguous settings, together rendering a dream-like realm. The compositions are initially collaged from family photographs and found images. By merging elements of landscape, body parts and man-made structures she brings together that which is documented, remembered, staged and imagined, which creates a sense of transitory moments within the canvas. 

During her residency Magdalena is creating a new body of work that explores the liminal spaces within communications between human and non – human and how a personified language of ‘the other’, particularly nature, becomes a metaphor and a way of creating ways of knowing. Some images and thoughts make home within us, stay with us and become the prism through which we perceive the world – even when they weren’t our experience in the first place. The living bodies – of plants and our own human ones – inherit past traumas, dreams and stories of the previous generations. Through her new works Magdalena wants to explore how we lean into the unknown by adding layers of meaning and create emotional “anchors”, which helps us navigate between what is on the inside and outside, as well as between the past and present. 

Magdalena will be working from the gallery studio until early January, producing work for a new gallery project TBA. Visitors are more than welcome to meet the artist and chat about her work while she is in attendance.