Zofia Pałucha works mainly with ”found footage” and creates sketches for the paintings
on a smartphone, using apps to transform selected photos. Like Free Jazz, the stream-of-consciousness-based work in contemporary figurative painting allows the artist to surrender to the painterly gesture and action of individual images. She combines the final artworks with evocative titles derived from philosophical essays, art history or quotes from movies and audiobooks.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the ever-changing landscape of contemporary crises has meant that podcasts about the most important political, social, and cultural events in the world always accompany Zofia Pałucha as she works and are an integral part of her creative process. One can trace the roots of the artist’s paintings to the early political works of Gerhard Richter, Marlene Dumas, or Luc Tuymans. Pałucha’s paintings, though deeply involved in politics and morality, are full of elusive meanings. They attempt to reflect the condition of modern man, emphasizing the fragility of the individual not only in the real world but in the virtual space too. Through the prism of sensuality and sexuality, filtered through personal experiences, the artist’s works delve into the problems in the modern world without providing a clear answer. Like the reality around us, her painting is multi-layered and subject to change. Her work is a manifesto, an expressive artistic statement about the here and now and perhaps ahead.
Focus on Sanity is on view through January 27, 2024, @ Galerie Pact, 70 rue des Gravilliers, 75003 Paris