Valeria MATELSKA (b. 1994), Hugs, 2023

acrylic, pigment, canvas; 120 x 87 cm;
Signed, dated and described on the back: Waleria / Matelska / "Hugged" / 2023.

The artist about the painting:
"Nowadays talking about love can be perceived as something kitschy, old-fashioned, trivial. This perception did not come out of nowhere and had its important reasons. European culture has theocentric roots, where love exists and is ideally a creative feeling. When thinking about love, everyone draws different images in their mind. This phenomenon has a wide range of meanings. There is love for a partner, a child, a fatherland, a parent, a dog, etc. When someone loves and this feeling is mutual, then one can say that he or she is in possession of an ethereal treasure."
She was born in Belarus in the city of Borisov. She is of Polish descent. She studied at the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow from 2012 to 2015. In 2015, she transferred to the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where in 2018 she defended her diploma in the studio of Prof. Wojciech Cieśniewski. In 2018, she was a finalist in the Eibisch Prize Competition. At the time, she received an honorable mention. The artist was a multiple scholarship holder of the Polish Government for foreigners. She has participated in numerous exhibitions. Her works are in private collections in Poland and abroad. The artist focuses on a minimalist form, which allows her to put the answers to her philosophical and existential questions in a simple way.