Alicja Patanowska is a potter, visual artist, designer, and doctor of arts. The embodied knowledge acquired in direct contact with the material is crucial for her artistic practice. A deep understanding of clay seen as a natural source brought her very close to the philosophy of post-humanism and feminist new materialism.
She says “I understood that the position of the Other, no matter if it is a plant, animal, woman, craftsman, black or gay, has common roots. Deeply rooted in tradition, postcolonial, feminist and environmentalist discourse, pottery with its utilitarian context, haptic sensations, material considerations and process orientation offer me a novel language to talk about burning issues of today”
Alicja Patanowska graduated from the Royal College of Art in London ( MA, 2014) and the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw (PhD, 2022). She is a laureate of a number of awards, such as Audience Award of the 18th Survival Art Review (2020), Franz Award (2019), Mazda Design Award (2018), Gazeta Wyborcza Art Award WARTO (2017), British Glass Biennial (2015). Her works also form a part of several art collections, such as the Shanghai Museum of Glass, Europejski Hotel’s Art Collection or the National Museum in Krakow. Her designs were temporary available in many places, including MoMA, Manchester Museum, London’s Barbican, and TATE Modern
More information about the Artist: dezeen.com - domusweb - culture.pl
fot. Celestyna Krol
My Body Leads Me Down
A Winding Path
From the artist : “ In this body of work, I delve into the rich territory of embodied cognition, a knowledge rooted in physical practice, as the only one existing since the dawn of humanity. It holds countless memories - gestures, interactions, feelings. Using clay, with its technical and historical memory, I convey personal stories through abstract forms, examining expressive juxtapositions: performance vs. passivity, craft vs. art, and, above all, object vs. subject.
Vibrant colors (engobes) intensify thrown clay traces, symbolizing non-verbal knowledge: flows, intuition, premonitions, emotionality, and memories recalled by contact with clay. The integral frame, acting as a backrest, embeds the physical matter and animates history of the clay's territory. This evolving territory becomes both the subject and object of knowledge emerging in the creative process.
I aim to unveil tensions in the physical matter - personal and collective unspoken stories, places, and contexts converging in each piece's intricate mosaic. The ceramic medium becomes a narrative device, a material trace of internal processes.”
Year: 2022-23
Technique: throwing wheel, areographe spraying, firing 1200 C
Material: porcelain, engobas. Frame: wood, acrylic paint
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