Gizela Mickiewicz

Exploring a variety of media and forms, including sculpture, installation and drawing,
Gizela Mickiewicz’s investigates bodily orientation in the world and the manifold ways through which inner experiences, memories, thoughts and interpersonal relationships are reflected in the bodily gestures, postures and movements, mirroring feelings and emotional tensions.

For many years Mickiewicz’s work has been driven lead by the idea of translating ephemeral and spiritual states into sculptural objects, using solid materials, often brilliantly juxtaposed in contradictory combinations, such as steel and ceramic. Her work has then now evolved towards a more synthetic formal definition, reaching the stage in which form and materiality harmonize with the content, expressing the same thing and opening up to a space for empathy and reciprocal comprehension.

Defined by the artist as performative and situational sculptures, her recent body of works refers to the human figure and to the plasticity of meanings that the latter can carry. Some works also emphasize the role that negative and empty spaces establish with the concepts of memory and remembrance, often conceived as cognitive tools that intervene as a the mental “completation” of an abstract sculpture, intentionally left incomplete and open to interpretation.

Gizela Mickiewicz (b. 1984, Poland) lives and works in Warsaw. She received an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, Poland. Solo shows include: L21, Palma de Mallorca (2023); Stereo, Warsaw (2022, 2020, 2017, 2015 and, 2011); Lucas Hirsch, Dusseldorf (2017); Arsenal, Białystok (2016); Frutta, Rome (2013) and, BWA Zielona Góra (2013). Group exhibitions include: Lovay Fine Arts, Geneva (2023); ASP Gallery, Kraków (2023); Pamoja Foundation, Warsaw (2023); Museum of Textiles, Łódź (2022); ECHO Cologne (2022); Art Encounters Biennial, Public Transport Museum, Timisoara (2021); Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2022); CAC, Vilnius (2020); Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2019); BOZAR, Brussels (2018); Bureau, New York (2015); Bunkier Sztuki, Cracow (2015); Kunsthalle Bratislava (2015) and Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2014). Mickiewicz completed a residency at Gasworks, London (2014) and Triangle, New York (2016). She was shortlisted to for the VIEWS – Deutsche Bank Award (2019).