Tissue – one word that captures a multitude of fleeting associations, such as a group of cells, organs, medicine, histology, body, remains, relics, hunting trophy, shreds, debris, matter, system, or specific function. These associations can only be felt subcutaneously. Under the tissue. 

The artistic fabric or tissue of the works of the six Warsaw-based artists reveals a broad spectrum of means of expression, which includes drawing, painting, collage, ebru technique, but also embroidery, sculpture, and installation. The works are situated, or perhaps snuggled down or huddled up, somewhere between figurativeness and abstraction, fairy-tale and nightmare, filigree and drastic, and brutality bordering on the macabre. Associated with esotericism, ritual, death, mourning, penance, and the absolute, the black colour returns tirelessly, along with the circle that symbolises perfection, unity, and the feminine element. Both canvases, ceramic forms and wax casts call for our touch. The airy ephemerality of the paper paradoxically corresponds with the massive antlers and dead branches used in the installations. In all the works, this multi-faceted and complex artistic tissue is shrouded in an aura of mystery, spirituality, and mysticism. The laboriousness and repetitiveness of the gesture of embroidering, sewing on beads, and forming tiny ceramic elements requires patience and regularity, at the same time placing the work in the area between therapy and contemplation, or almost a ritual.

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Epithelial tissue, muscle tissue, connective tissue, nervous tissue, creative and solid tissue, etc. – this is what human, animal, and plant organisms are woven from. Tissues constitute organs: heart, brain, root, and stem. Recurring in the works of all the artists, dismembered bodies and elements of flora do not aim to depict the biological nature itself, but rather to draw attention to its delicacy and fragility. The filigree ceramic works of Justyna Adamczyk resemble nerves, exposed and vulnerable to external factors, and therefore neuralgic and painful. On the other hand, the tondos depicting anonymous figures evoke associations with coffin portraits. The titles Rotten, Bruise bring back the stories of nameless victims and at the same time pay tribute to them. Magdalena Ciemierkiewicz’s monumental Curtain, a “work in process” that the artist has been creating since 2016, by sewing on small, black beads, raises questions about the essence of meditation and ritual. In her collages, she uses fragments of reproductions from publications about Polish painting, mainly medieval and Renaissance. Fragments of bodies placed in a strange context rewrite the history of those who were first and foremost human beings and only later recognized as saints. Fragments of the human body also appear in Adrianna Konopka's drawings, but they have been distorted and mutilated. In turn, Karolina Majewska creates casts of fragments of her own body using wax, a matter that is as soft as the human body and which is equally sensitive, unstable, and susceptible to injuries. The works of Justyna Kosińska and Kai Wielowiejska explore the delicacy of the animal and plant world. The former presented her works from the “Beginnings” series, in which she evokes in a synthetic form the attributes of dying out (or already extinct) animal species. Embroidered leopard skin, seal flipper, and whale fin resemble hunting trophies, at the same time emphasizing the process of erasing, disappearing and also neglecting. Kaja Wielowiejska mainly uses already dead matter, additionally dyeing it black, to emphasize the disastrous and violent nature of human actions.

Social tissue and organicism, a view according to which society is a living organism, the individual organs of which are intimately interconnected. The functioning of the social body depends on its smallest parts. The imperfect casts and dismembered bodies represent the objectification and repression experienced by women or persons with a non-heterosexual sexual orientation and non-cisgender identity. The presented clusters of beads, lines and strokes of the brush, ceramic elements, layers of thread, and sheets of delicate paper draw attention to the fact that if we were to consider the society that we live in as a living organism, then we should take better care of its condition.