ink, gouache and collage on paper, 60 x 51 cm
author's copper frame plus ash, museum glass
signed, dated and stamped by the author on the reverse
unique
TheSaintApoloniaseries is a series of drawings, collages,paintings,objectsexploring and alluding to the iconography of Saint Apolonia of Alexandria - a martyr of the CatholicChurchwho lived in the 3rd century AD. A characteristic motif of her martyrdom is that her executionersknocked out all herteethand, consequently, a tooth and dental pincers as leitmotifs of her images. Pola Dwurnik,whoseofficial version of her name is Apolonia, departs from the pathos of religious symbolism to bring out the madness and fascinating confusion of horror and decorativeness in the portraitsof her saintly namesake. The collage is framed with copper flatbars from the roof of the artist's Warsaw home,whereshe lived as a child with her parents Teresa Gierzynska and Edward Dwurnik.
BIO
Her main areas of activityare oil painting, drawing in its many varieties (comics, large-format drawing, animation, illustration) and collage. She is also involved in publishing and editorial activities. She is the author of nine original art books, seven ofwhichare artbooks drawn entirely by the artist,Among themLight (2003), Living in Basel (2007), Social Chronicle (2008), Song for Wojtek (2016), Mr. Martin (2019). In 2013, she published an award-winning bilingual publication on interpreting painting, Girl on Canvas, towhichshe invited more than thirtyauthorsfrom all over the world to contribute, including Olga Tokarczuk, Maria Poprzęcka, Dr. Andrzej Depka, Piotr Lachmann and others.In 2022, the National Museum in Warsaw,togetherwith Krupa Gallery, published Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz's last novel, Jedyne wyjscie, in a comic-drawing interpretation by Pola Dwurnik, according to a script by Wojciech Sztaba. She studied art history at Warsaw University. She learned drawing, photography and painting in the studios of herparents, Teresa Gierzyńska and Edward Dwurnik. She was a scholarship holder of the Laurenz-Haus Stiftung in Basel (2004-2005) and has been awarded several times by the Polish Society of Book Publishers. Her paintings and drawings have been shown in group and solo exhibitions including.At the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, the Centre for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, the Trafostacja Sztuki in Szczecin, the BWA galleries in Tarnów, Kalisz, Jelenia Gora, Zielona Goraand Nowy Sącz, Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok, HAU2 in Berlin, MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome, Kunsthaus Baselland in Basel, Daniel Benjamin Gallery in London and others. Her works are in the collections of the National Museum in Gdansk, the MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Wroclaw, POLIN in Warsaw, the BWA Bielska Gallery in Bielsko-Biala, Schoen Palace in Sosnowiec, the Krupa Collection in Wroclaw, the Dela Art Collection in Paris and in private collections around the world.