Holidays on the Red Sea | Marta Paulat

Artist

Marta Paulat

ABOUT EXHIBITION

Jolanta Gumula
www.artinfo.pl

At the last vernissage, the Nova gallery, which is young but has already been permanently inscribed in the artistic map of Krakow, was usually held without large crowds and official speeches. It coincides with the atmosphere of the gallery, its collaborators and the art it presents. And from the beginning of their activity, the owners have assumed that they will present first of all the newest art remaining in the circle of new realism.

The trend is very interesting, constantly gaining new fans. At the beginning it seems trashy, banal, naive, after a while it turns out that it’s about this kitsch and banality. The scoff of some artists added by their artists causes their paintings not only to entertain, but also ironically comment on reality. Everything looks very positive. However, a disturbing thought appears on the horizon. There is the fear that such painting is done (or has already happened) simply fashionable. And as you know, intensely following fashion often leads to the “spoiling of the genre.” Hence, watching the paintings of Marta Paulat that are being exhibited to a man can be accompanied by mixed feelings. They like themselves, they are funny, they operate with strong, saturated colors, but in the face of the threat of “fashion”, it would be better to be more critical and not just to be enthused. In fact, many do – for security, prefer not to praise.

The paintings presented by Marta are several of her latest canvases titled “Holidays on the Red Sea”. Large sizes, draw attention with vivid colors and intentional kind of helplessness. This type of painting does not apply qualitative color transitions or chiaroscuro modeling. Everything seems to be reduced to basic contours and shapes resembling a comic book workshop. We will not see a landscape background here. Although, as the title of the cycle suggests, the coastal landscape should dominate, the scenes seem to be suspended in a colorful vacuum. Despite the characters on the move, dolphins popping up, they are very static. One would even be tempted to compare this climate of peace and quiet to the atmosphere of the paintings of some masters of the 15th-century Italian painting, for instance Piero della Francesca.

The starting material for Paulat’s works were photographs.
“These are photos that were taken on family holiday trips, and photos from the travel agencies’ travel brochures, on which the sun always shines, the sky is blue and people happy, rested and smiling. Each painting, in addition to the realistic elements taken for photos, has something unreal, some own fiction, some mismatch and ambiguity, like a holiday on the Red Sea. ”
The artist does not add to the canvas of artificial ideology: “Contrary to appearances, this is not an artistic attempt to return to childhood or the desire to manifest the social value of the family. I’d rather stay at the fact that the pictures were just a pretext for painting, as good as any other. At the same time, I hope that I managed to smuggle in these paintings something that interests me in painting, both silence, staticity, as well as some internal tension, rasp. ”