Herald St

Magda Blasinska

Wine and Water

Bologna | Via Valdonica, 14, 40126 Bologna

18 September – 21 November

Preview: Friday 18 September, 5–7pm

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Magda Blasinska’s works are heavily influenced by her upbringing in post-communist rural Poland, a period associated with shortages, restrictions and surveillance. Her paintings incorporate folkloric influences, along with memories of sensorial encounters and the agricultural landscape. Working at both intimate and large scales, her densely built-up oil paintings, characterised by a polished sheen, feature looping gestural forms that create an enveloping and immersive depth, oscillating between recognisable figuration and pure abstraction. Her restrained palette of browns draws a clear connection to the outdoor landscape, evoking earth, bark and bracken. Blasinska’s technique of repeated markmaking forms pathways that reference the cyclical and seasonal nature of labour, paying homage to the invisible economies of physical work – agricultural, domestic and artisan. Blasinska observes that her ‘visual language is [grounded in] a desire to connect – to tie a knot between muscle memory and sensory experience. She layers meanings through gestures rooted in handwriting, craft and everyday domestic tasks: ploughing, digging, weaving, basket-making, kneading and knotting dough. Blasinska searches for an image by moving and rolling paint across the surface until it begins to behave like something else, triggering sensory related experiences – temperature, smell, taste and texture.’

Magda Blasinska (b.1983, Ilza, Poland; lives and works in St Leonards-on-Sea, UK) studied Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art and completed an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2018.

Text by Laurie Barron