Anna Szpakowska-Kujawska (1931), Journey in Two Sides of the Night, object - painting on calabash, height 40 cm, 1980
Artwork information: Anna Szpakowska-Kujawska (1931), Journey in Two Sides of the Night, object - painting on a calabash, height 40 cm, 1980, three-dimensional made in the artist's own technique from the artist's African series of works from 1977-84. Very good condition. The works of this series, called calabashes, are the result of the artist's interest in three-dimensional spherical objects, which will return several more times in different stages of the artist's rich oeuvre. The image-covered calabash (African calabashes) are not a simple transfer of the idea of painting to the surface of a three-dimensional object, but a separate creation for which new applications of both composition and color are necessary. In the object Journey to Two Sides of the Night, the African calabash, which has various practical uses after drying (e.g., a container for water), becomes a metaphor for the universe, also by its sphericity, a metaphor for the Earth and man's journey through it. Anna Szpakowska-Kujawska's work is always deeply humanistic, and at its center remains a human being immersed in nature.
Anna Szpakowska-Kujawska (1931) received her diploma from the Wroclaw State Higher School of Fine Arts (now the Academy of Fine Arts) in 1956, and from 1961 she was a member of the Wroclaw School (later the Wroclaw Group), which brought together the most outstanding young artists in Wroclaw, most of them students from Prof. E. Geppert's studio. In 1968, the artist presented works from her "Atoms" series at the legendary "Under the Mona Lisa" gallery in Wroclaw, run by Jerzy Ludwinski. She was a participant in the Wrocław '70 Art Symposium, as an artist and co-organizer in Marian Bogusz's team. From 1977 to 1984 she lived in Nigeria, where she taught painting and drawing at the Kwara College of Education in Illorin. Her stay in Africa, as well as numerous other trips, had a great impact on the artist's work, resulting in successive series of works. Versatile in her use of materials and forms of work, she expresses herself in drawing, painting, reliefs, sculptures, objects and spatial installations, using natural materials (calabashes, plant fragments), ceramic techniques and her own techniques. Her painting and other forms fall into several currents of contemporary art from expressionism and magic realism to painterly conceptual forms. It is noteworthy that the expressionism and surrealism in the artist's works stem from the intellectual subjugation of emotions and awareness of the creative process. The artist's works can be found in museum collections including the National Museum in Wroclaw, the Art Museum in Lodz, as well as in private collections at home and abroad.
