The Invasion Reference Image

The title assault (invasion) is presented in six scenes with girls (at a dangerous age just before entering adulthood) and monsters (of white, jelly bulk, with many tentacle-limbs). There is violence, rape and sexual assault, escape and pursuit here. Yet at some point it is no longer clear who is the executioner, and who is the victim. Girls dressed most nicely, without bloody marks, holding the bloodstained axes with innocent faces. The white-and-blue colour scheme forms a climate, full of pain and fantasies, with contrastingly outstanding red spots – not only blood, wounds, scratches, but also something that is on the plates and pouring out from the cups. [A. Dzierżyc-Horniak]

“The little girl is an ideal form for me. (...) They are easy to paint. They come out themselves. (...) It just so happens that painting little girls in oppressive situations gives me pleasure” – in this self-commentary one can find important clues to understanding the work of Aleksandra Waliszewska. The Invasion cycle fits perfectly into the pattern typical for her, after she abandoned oil painting in the style of old Italian masters in favour of small, created on a daily basis, perverse-fairytale gouaches.
The title assault (invasion) is presented in six scenes with girls (at a dangerous age just before entering adulthood) and monsters (of white, jelly bulk, with many tentacle-limbs). There is violence, rape and sexual assault, escape and pursuit here. Yet at some point it is no longer clear who is the executioner, and who is the victim. Girls dressed most nicely, without bloody marks, holding the bloodstained axes with innocent faces. The white-and-blue colour scheme forms a climate, full of pain and fantasies, with contrastingly outstanding red spots – not only blood, wounds, scratches, but also something that is on the plates and pouring out from the cups.
The way of depicting in The Invasion made it prone to multiple interpretations. One can turn to Freud, seeking answers to the disturbing and surreal imagery in the biography of the artist. One can consider it in terms of artistic provocation and creation (dragging the viewer into the trap of imagination). One can notice a kind of a play-confrontation of old and new motifs, and culture clichés (Bosch, Marquis de Sade, Andersen) or today's horror films and comic books. But one can also see it as less complex. For the artist herself, the contents of paintings are supposed to be Alternate to the composition. Above all, what really counts for that little girl is “to put [her] in something that won't be comfortable.” Merely this, or maybe as much as this.
This ambiguous cycle became a part of the CoCA collection with good reason. Waliszewska, alongside four other artists, took part in the third instalment of Focus Poland Project 3 (Take 5, 2013) – an authorial idea of Dobrila Denegri, the CoCA Programme Director, and within this project foreign curators exhibited young artists – hopes of Polish art. [A. Dzierżyc-Horniak]