UNTITLED | JOANNA PIOTROWSKA

Joanna Piotrowska’s intricate work (Warsaw, 1985) merges visual research with the performative arts. Her practice is focused on the human condition, exploring the complexity of interactions and intimate behaviors in everyday relationships. She boldly delves into darker nuances, such as the tensions caused by mechanisms of dominance and psychological control, as well as violent behaviors and the resulting self-protective responses.
Through a refined interpretation of collage practice, Piotrowska focuses on the concept of absence, applying it to the subjects of her artworks: the figures are not absent but rather erased, sometimes covered with white filters, other times obscured by patterns or cutouts from other images.

Untitled (2024) is a mixed-media artwork: Piotrowska begins the creation process with a black-and-white photograph, manually printed in silver gelatin, depicting two female figures seated on a sofa. The artist then applies a layer of wood veneer, covering—erasing, concealing—the woman on the left.
The image’s framing is unconventional; it is angled, pointing from above downward, abruptly cropping the heads of the two seated figures at neck level.
Gestures also play a fundamental role in the composition. The two women’s hands are tightly intertwined, with one detail: the woman on the right holds her right arm naturally bent along her side, while her left arm, in order to clasp the other hands, extends behind her back in an unnatural, tension-inducing position. This dual sensation—of discomfort yet attachment—is precisely what Piotrowska seeks to communicate to the viewer.

With a strong yet clean aesthetic and deliberately ambiguous framing, the artist skillfully alternates between demonstrations of care and affection and gestures of dominance and power, offering a view of domestic and intimate life that is far more complex, perhaps even more realistic, than the one conventionally presented by society.

The artwork Untitled is currently on view at ICA Philadelphia (USA) as part of a solo exhibition dedicated to Joanna Piotrowska, titled “unseeing eyes, restless bodies,” from July 13 to December 1, 2024.

Joanna Piotrowska
Untitled, 2024
Silver gelatin handprint, wood veneer, 130 x 160 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Phillida Reid, London

06/11/24