oil pastel, paper; 42 x 29.5 cm
signed, dated, described on the reverse: Aura/Joanna Rajkowska/River AURA, TUTKV, FINLAND, September 2022
Rajkowska studied mural painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow in the studio of Prof. Jerzy Nowosielski, from which she graduated with an MFA diploma in 1993. A year earlier, she received a master's degree in art history from Jagiellonian University. The artist expanded her education by studying at SUNY New York University's Studio Semester Program in 1994 and 1995. De-soothing, de-humanizing and relationship-building are the methods the artist uses most often. Her goal is to reduce human activity, multiply causal subjects and human and non-human relationships. The artist treats her projects like organisms, focusing on the life of matter in its molecular dimension, life cycles, growth and aging. In the belief that humans, as a species, have not been able to create a vital, sustainable culture, the artist often juxtaposes (human) historical and sociopolitical contexts with the lives of other species. Her public projects include collaborations with institutions such as CCA Ujazdowski Castle (2007, Dotleniacz, Poland), Trafo Gallery (2008, Airlines, Hungary), Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2009, Gorge, Poland), The Showroom (2010, Chariot, UK), British Council (2010, Benjamin in Konya, Turkey), VII Berlin Biennale (2012, Born in Berlin, Germany), Royal Society of Arts, Citizen Power Peterborough program's Arts and Social Change, Arts Council England (2012, Child Peterborough, UK), Frieze Projects 2012 (2012, Forcing a Miracle, UK), Institute for Contemporary Ideas and Art (2014, Carpet, Sweden) and Frieze Sculpture (2019, Chick, UK).
Her best-known project remains Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue, 2002, a project that has become one of the symbols of Warsaw.
The artist received a highly regarded award from the weekly magazine Polityka - the Polityka Passport - in 2007 for her "extraordinary projects carried out in public space, for reaching out to the man wandering around the city," as well as the Grand Prize of the Polish Culture Foundation for lifetime achievement.