Sculpture, 2022
58 x 58 cm
Bas-relief, author's ceramic mass
The series of bas-reliefs "The Body Leads Me Down a Winding Road" speaks to the importance of embodied knowledge. Knowledge specific to excluded groups: women, queer people, artisans and even non-humans who still have to fight for their rightful place in patriarchal reality. In this series of radical pottery (or is it painting?), the intense colors are an outward, symbolic representation of knowledge coming straight from the body: flows, intuition, hunches, emotionality.
Composition 6, as one of the few works in the series, was made not of porcelain, but of a proprietary mixture of clays. In this way, the artist wanted to achieve different shades of black from matte and deep to iridescent almost silver and shiny. The characteristic grooves on the surface of the work are traces of the artist's hands created by rolling on the potter's rail. It is these that intensify the associations with fleshiness, movement and occurring tensions, while at the same time causing the different contours of light to completely change the character of this relief. The frame, which is an integral part of the work, reinforces the integrity of this multi-faceted experience.
The work was made using a potter's wheel, which is the artist's favorite tool. The feminist reading of craft and the exploration of the figure of the Other became one of the main currents of Alicja Patanowska's artistic work after her doctorate.
More works by the artist at: w ww.onar te.pl
