Martha MULAWA (1973), Gunnera; 2023

Acrylic, canvas, polymer; 50 x 40 x 8cm
(spatial object)
Signed. , date, p.d.: Mulawa 2023

Graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, Faculty of Industrial Forms. Scholarship holder
at Vysoká škola uměleckoprůmyslová v Praze and l'École des beaux-arts de Toulouse. A Krakow-based artist, she grew out of her Puławy roots and is in love with the Tatra Mountains. She creates mainly sculptures and installations, as well as batik paintings. Winner of many design competitions. In her art projects she combines sculpture, installations, batik or painting with music, mapping, light and dance. She is usually inspired by deeply and multi-levelly felt nature, which can be seen in most of her sculptures, paintings and design projects. She is eager to share creative emotions, stimulating the viewer's creativity. She has presented her works in more than sixty solo and group exhibitions, most recently at the Botanical Garden of Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Her works can be found in private and institutional collections.
The title of the work alludes to the Latin name gunnera manicata, describing a South American perennial rarely found in European gardens due to demanding growing conditions.
Used in a semi-plastic form, realized as a cast of a real leaf, it has become a being from the borderland of worlds through its interesting texture and shape. In nature, the flask of a flowering gunnera can resemble the head of a dragon. Here, the surface of the leaf was given elements of a human face, as if personifying nature as an eminently important element of the environment in which humans live. The silent mouth and a certain predatory nature of the added "spikes" may raise the concern that the figure is close to loudly rebuking its rights, so unreflectively violated by anthropocentric civilization.