Kasia Kmita created the works that make up the Foyer exhibition in the kodra technique, which comes from the tradition of folk culture. These figurative cutouts developed by the inhabitants of the Łowicz region were used to depict important events in the life of the community, such as holidays and rituals. Kmita uses them to create visual records of contemporary social life.
The artist combines her interest in the kodras with a fascination with cinema and the potential of the cinematographic language in creating still pictures. If we looked at Kasia Kmita’s work as a form of direct animation, it would have to be described as a mockumentary. All the characters and scenes depicted by the artist have been witnessed, remembered and recreated by her as cut-outs. Foyer is a continuation of the Horizontal Panorama project, shown at the New Horizons International Film Festival in Wrocław in 2019.
The subject of that exhibition was the festival audience. The artist depicted people who were connected by their desire to experience cinematographic works together.
Kmita’s new exhibition is located in the foyer of the Muranów cinema. It is a special place in the emotional topography of Warsaw cinema lovers, an institution symbolising the film culture. Its foyer acts as the vestibule of the screening rooms, where films are not consumed but experienced. In this unique place, Kmita invites the viewers to a screening before the screening. She uses the figurative cut-outs to build a multi-threaded installation. The narrative of the exhibition is told in a language organised by the grammar of cinematography – editing, cutting, frame, sequences of subsequent scenes. The Heroine is our guide in this story, migrating between subsequent scenes.
Any resemblance to actual persons or events is intentional and not coincidental, the plot moves from one place to another, the characters, including the fictional Heroine – the artist’s porte parole – are taken from life.
Kasia Kmita (b. 1972) graduated in Painting from the Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław. She has participated in numerous individual and collective exhibitions in Poland and abroad. Recipient of numerous awards in Polish and foreign painting
competitions.
In 1996 she received the Award of the Minister of Culture and Art “Promotions ‘96.” In the 1998 Eugeniusz Geppert Competition, she received the Award of the Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. In 2006, she was awarded at the “Fish Eye” Biennale of Young Art for a series of works combining elements of Polish folklore and pop culture. Named by the Łossskot magazine as one of the most interesting personalities in culture in 2007. Two-time recipient of the scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2011, 2017).
In her work, she uses a meticulously refined form of cut-out. She encapsulates her observations about contemporary culture, trends and lifestyle in colourful compositions. A careful observer of the changes taking place in society, she analyses the desires and mechanisms governing human behaviour and psyche.