ARTIST STATEMENT

My initial artistic research practices were built on the notion of archive. I approached it not as a sealed capsule, preserving artifacts of time, but as a fluid medium. Its boundaries are constantly expanding by exploration of new territories. However, the most attractive thing for me as an artist was not its visible content. My chief interest is embodied in something that is lost partially or completely. Absence shapes spaces which can be either defined as voids or identified as gaps, traces, concealing narratives that only seem inconspicuous.

My attention to the image of trace comes from my fascination with events which are not seen as events anymore or may be preserved in conditional outlines. Evidence is erased, witnesses vanished or appear to be non-human agents, the scene of the incident has no landmarks. Contours of the circumstances are found in the areas of tangled memories, in musty wardrobes, on garden beds, on the maps of cities and regions, in random craters in the meadows, in other words, in the peripheral landscapes.

When coming to these areas, I aim to make the traces of memory and oblivion, difficult heritage and obscure narratives visible. The missing and undisclosed are restored through rituals, performance, reenactment, site-specific installation, which are documented in photographs, sculpture, video, sound, or text. The research journey becomes a self-sufficient medium, which also develops into a process of detecting signs and marks.

The ability to mimic is a trait that attracts my attention to traces. Nevertheless, mimicry engages me on its own. I am exploring its potential as a topic, method, and visual language. In my projects, the rituals of memory pretend to be gardening experiments, the reflection on identity disguises as fashion shoots. The obsession with finding meteorites pretends to be a pilgrimage to sacred places, the study of the colonial heritage in the region repeats the patterns of a tourist route. Finally, my own body as material mimics non-human forms, following the logic of the natural scenery.

January 2023