Abacá is Wioletta Kulewska’s second solo exhibition and presents six new works created during a residency in the former industrial city of Barreiro, outside Lisbon, in spring 2019.
The series continues Kulewska’s experimentation in abstraction, in which each of six canvases presents gently geometric forms set against a subdued background. Some of these coloured shapes appear as if folded like paper or cloth, as three-dimensional objects or as delicately crenelated forms. The shapes seem to float in ‘infinite’ space, reminiscent of the Russian suprematist painters, the art movement founded by Kazimir Malevich, who frequently used “the white” to represent a state of transcendence.
Drawing on constructivist painting, the specificity of each shape’s design approximates human technology and industrial purpose, whether as garment cloth, machine patterns or printing tools, but these forms also suggest a human playfulness and movement, or perhaps a primitive, dream-like language.
Abacá derives from the abacá plant, originating from the Philippines and used in industry as a major source of high-quality fibre prior to the introduction of synthetic textiles. A material used in cordage, hat-making, teabags, carpeting, clothing and furniture, abacá featured prominently in the city of Barreiro, the site of Kulewska’s residency, before it was phased out with the city’s deindustrialisation in the early 1970s.
Kulewska is a Polish painter and designer who has lived and worked in Valletta since 2009. A graduate of fine arts from the Opole High School of Arts, the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw and the London Metropolitan University, Kulewska went on to complete the painting in contemporary practice course at the Slade School of Fine Arts in London, 2017.
The exhibition is on at the upper gallery, Malta School of Art, 106, Old Bakery Street, until Friday. It is open Monday to Friday from 8 am to 12.30pm and from 6 to 8pm on Friday.
www.wiolettakulewska.coM