February 24, 2022 – March 9, 2022
Irene Laub Gallery is pleased to present « Mata-Morphosis », Tatiana Wolska’s fourth solo exhibition at the gallery. The project reflects the diversity and evolution of Wolska’s practice et sets in dialogue her last work on paper with sculptures made out of wood, nails, ceramic, and plastic.
Tatiana Wolska: Born in 1977 in Zawiercie (PO), Lives and works in Bruxelles (BE)
Tatiana Wolska’s multidisciplinary practice is characterized by organic growth and proliferation of form. She willingly distances herself from minimalist forms to focus her artistic research on the sinuosity of curves, on the emergence of organic elements, and on the hybridization of objects. Plastic bottles, wood scraps, furniture elements become matrixes for growth and amplification. Through an economy of means and the simplicity of gesture, Wolska brings out the inherent poetic qualities of these recycled materials. Her worldly, Promethean and spectacular works then stand out as monuments of an archaic kind of beauty. Upon graduating from Villa Arson in Nice (FR), Tatiana Wolska receives the “Grand Prix du Salon de Montrouge” and is offered by Fondation Pierre Bergé a solo show at the Palais de Tokyo in
Paris (FR). Since then she regularly collaborates with international galleries and institutions, namely the Frac Corse in Corte (FR) and Frac PACA (FR) in 2016, Villa Empain in Brussels (BE), Arsenal Gallery in Poznan (PL) in 2018, and Frac Centre-Val de Loire in Orléans (FR) in 2019. Her work was also more recently shown at the Villa Datris in Paris (FR) in 2020, and in 2021 at the castle of Chamarande in Essonne (FR), Sculpture in the City and Frieze Sculpture, both in London (UK).
Conversation between Tatiana Wolska and Louma Salamé, director of the Boghossian Foundation – Villa Empain (Brussels, BE) on February 2022:
Tatiana, I would like to start by talking about your favourite materials: I have the impression that recycled wood was your first medium and that you then discovered other found materials.
Yes, indeed, I started with wood and plastic bottles – anything I could find directly on the street. I’ve always drawnalongside this sculptural practice. I draw every day, constantly, mainly with pen and pencil. For the last ten years orso, I have also been working with clay, which is closer to a drawing because I can handle it directly as I handle thesheet of paper and the pen.
You often exploit the unsuspected potential of unusual materials. If the question of the availability and price ofmaterials was not an issue, are there any materials that you would like to try?
Sometimes, I’m almost jealous of artists who create incredible things with marble, granite, or even just oil paint.However, I really like the idea of not buying, ordering or shipping anything!
You have always created organic forms, sometimes monumental like the sculpture at the Palais de Tokyo or the treehouse at Villa Empain. They take possession of the space, you can walk around them and go inside of the structure.Does this fascination with the relationship between the interior and exterior come from your drawing practice?My works never start from sketches, nor do I have a defined form in mind, which allows me to be surprised by theshape that emerges. It is very rare, but I sometimes have a precise starting point. For example, in the case of themain wooden sculpture in this exhibition, I started with the general idea of a Möbius strip, a shape that turns in onitself and in which there is no distinction between inside and outside. Most of the time I don’t have a specific idea, Istart the shape and it leads me somewhere.
In your sculptures in particular, you often create things that are bigger than you, whose dimensions exceed your ownscale.
Yes, unfortunately… Monumentality, especially in sculpture, presents a kind of challenge in the creation process.However, and I think it’s the case for many artists, I am limited by the places where I live and work. There is a certainfrustration because I am not actually a city artist! I love to work outside, I love big sculptures and I’m thinking moreand more about going somewhere in the countryside or in the mountains and having all the space I need to expressmyself.
But I sometimes spend weeks creating drawings, mainly small ones, and I look at them with a feminist perspective.I see them as housework, interspersed between my daily obligations. For example, when my daughters were verysmall, I started a series of sewn works and bought a silent sewing machine so that I wouldn’t disturb them. Thesesmall formats that I make daily are important to me despite their size, they are acknowledged and taken intoconsideration.
Indeed, these drawings are not negligible, they are at the heart of your work even if they have a more domestic, moremodest and traditionally feminine dimension. There is a duality between these rather intimate works and your desireto confront nature or materials that go beyond you.
Drawing also gives me a certain balance, it allows me to express myself in a direct way and to satisfy my compulsivenature. I draw constantly and with these drawings I can try things out, mess around and make the forms evolvewithout being afraid of messing anything up. Drawing and sculpture are always interwoven.