Joanna Woś

Joanna Woś's artworks examine the topics of sexuality and power dynamics, and they are created in a dreamy style inspired by the elaborate symbolic language present in traditional painting. By referencing scenes from pornographic films and religious compositions from the Catholic tradition, Woś blends multiple perspectives and spaces into her canvases to depict female protagonists caught in several parallel psychological realities. Her paintings' spectral and figurative scene is full of emotional and narrative intensity. Instead of trivialising sex, Woś portrays its complex power, including its potential for manipulation, danger, and even death, as well as its connection to love and affection. Using a grisaille style and applying thin layers of oil paint, Woś's work evokes the erotic paintings of the 20th-century brother painters Pierre Klossowski and Balthus. The critical difference is that the female figure is not portrayed as a fetishised object but as a conflicted subject grappling with sexual and moral uncertainty. ...

Wschód /vshood/ translates to sunrise, new beginning. It also refers to geographical east. Wschód is a contemporary art gallery founded in 2017 in Warsaw by curator and critic Piotr Drewko. The gallery represents international artists working across a wide spectrum of practices including video, sculpture, installation, painting. Apart from the exhibition program the gallery initiates a wide range of cultural activities – publication, institutional projects, podcasts in collaboration with artists, curators, critics. In 2018, Wschód initiated a gallery exchange program Friend of a Friend. In 2022 the gallery conceived a time-shared exhibition space ECHO in Cologne. Starting from the Fall of 2023, Wschód has expanded to New York with a yearly curated program of exhibitions and video / film projects. ...