On June 3rd the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw will open a new exhibition titled “The Dark Stories”. It’s a collection of paintings by Aleksandra Waliszewska, portraying ominous visages of folklore and mystic creatures. Alongside Waliszewska’s works, the visitors will be able to see art by Mikalojus Čiurlionis, Kristjan Raud and others.
Aleksandra Waliszewska was born in 1976 in Warsaw. There she finished the Academy of Fine Arts with distinction and later received a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. She specialises in gouache (also knowns as opaque watercolour) – a method of painting with pigment dissolved in water and stiffened with glue. For a few years she draws at least one picture a day on A4 paper, and thanks to that she has over 2000 of them.
The exhibition “Dark Stories. The Symbolism of the East and North” is a collection of paintings of scenes from pagan mythology. They often show people possessed by primal instincts like desire and violence. Paintings are set in medieval lands of today’s Poland, such as swamps, woodlands and torn-down shacks. She described her works as “a comeback to childhood dreams”, bizarre and dark as they are.
Waliszewska’s paintings are accompanied by artworks by other East Europeans to paint a full picture of the mythology of this part of the continent. Among those artists are Waliszewska’s ancestors, Kazimiera and Anna Dębska, as well as unrelated artists who touched on similar themes: Erich Kügelgen, Mikalojus Čiurlionis, Mykola Murashko and Teodora Ūders.
The exhibition is available at the Museum of the Vistula in Warsaw. It’s open during the museum’s opening hours, and the tickets cost 15pln for regular tickets and 5pln for the reduced.