by Agape Charmani
Aleksandra Waliszewska is a Polish artist famous for her morbid figures and jarring symbolism. Her paintings are little worlds of unfortunate events, with her characters being in the middle of bad situations, inside foreign bodies and alongside malicious creatures.
According to culture.pl, Waliszewska works constantly, up to 5 hours per day. She works while watching her stories unfold on their own, allowing them to take over her canvas and help create this nightmarish world of perverse heroes. Working in both canvas and gouache on paper, the artist trusts a dark, raw emotion when it comes to the needs of her characters. “I worship art of the Renaissance, but some elements of what is going on right now are also an important influence. For example, not long ago I’ve painted a series of pieces on the massacre on Norwegian island of Utoya. It’s a bit of a romantic need to locate “grand subject” of the present time, I guess. All kinds of influences, both by Memling’s doomsday painting and weird Japanese horror movies, are being mixed at this point,” explains the artist.
