A solo exhibition by Polish artist Wioletta Kulewska’s is currently showing at Valletta Contemporary featuring her latest series of large-scale paintings, watercolours, collages, sculptures and installations – a body of work instigated during Kulewska’s residence at The Pedvāle Art Museum in Latvia, 2021.

Kulewska’s paintings oscillate between abstraction and representation. In her practice, she explores threads associated with spirituality and human relations within the natural world.

Detail from Five Feathers by Wioletta Kulewska

Kulewska is interested in the imagery of prehistoric cultures, analysing its contents, signs and symbols. Her practice is informed by her travels – trips to the Baltic, Caucasus and Eastern Mediterranean territories have resulted in encounters within the ancient world, that have served at points of departure for the distinct narratives found in her extended body of work.

Forms of peculiar souvenirs brought back from these expeditions, such as small artefacts or elements of nature (feathers, shells, bones), can be found across her canvases. The image thus becomes a kind of afterimage of the objects, impressions and experiences gathered, with Kulewska’s artistic practice combining elements of research across philosophy, archaeology and anthropology.

Works created from her inquiry into ancient Latvian culture and Baltic mythology

The artist’s sojourn in Latvia in August 2021 was an important time in her research on religion, understood as a philosophical reflection on the world. The works created during this time result from her inquiry into ancient Latvian culture and Baltic mythology, in particular their message about living in unison with nature.

Three Feathers by Wioletta Kulewska

The works within the exhibition at Valletta Contemporary are a fusion of the visual ideas gathered by the artist, shared by many cultures and traditions, which Kulewska subjects to artistic reinterpretation, in order to create a painterly universe of her own.

What emerges is a reflection on the significance of nature, myths and rituals in the modern world, on the concept of time, identity and the essence of art, which is the guardian of mythological language, so crucial for the history of culture.

The Feather Collector is showing at Valletta Contemporary until April 16. The exhibition is curated by Anna Stec and is under the honorary patronage of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Valletta and supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.