From the Merr Christmas cycle Reference Image

Forty pictures, forty faces – smiling women, men and children, known to us by their names (from the works’ titles). All dressed in red-and-white hats and Santa Claus suits. A somewhat schematic and simple contour drawing, a specific and thus easily recognizable line, vivid colours. This is how the Merry Christmas cycle by Dorota Podlaska presents itself, first created for the need of a thematic exhibition at the Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok (2005).
These are portraits of people close to her – painted in a manner to make them look beautiful – and it is the way in which the artist wanted to thank them for their help. This was a time when the artist was facing solitude after leaving her home in Bydgoszcz to move to the capital. The story, written in forty figurative frames, is her answer to the longing for old friends and to the joy of meeting new ones.
In a way typical for her, the artist obliterates boundaries between the private sphere of life and practising art. Yet one more time she convinces us that, in her case, it is simply a day-to-day practice. By taking an unassuming communication form, she boils her art down to communicating on a personal level, creating conditions for intimate contact with the viewer. In their turn, the viewers may find out about a thing so obvious that it is banal – that friendship makes the best Christmas present and that everyone in a “kindness” attire (worn not only “for holidays”) can be like Santa Claus and feel noble, better, needed. [A. Dzierżyc-Horniak]

Forty pictures, forty faces – smiling women, men and children, known to us by their names (from the works’ titles). All dressed in red-and-white hats and Santa Claus suits. A somewhat schematic and simple contour drawing, a specific and thus easily recognizable line, vivid colours. This is how the Merry Christmas cycle by Dorota Podlaska presents itself, first created for the need of a thematic exhibition at the Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok (2005).
These are portraits of people close to her – painted in a manner to make them look beautiful – and it is the way in which the artist wanted to thank them for their help. This was a time when the artist was facing solitude after leaving her home in Bydgoszcz to move to the capital. The story, written in forty figurative frames, is her answer to the longing for old friends and to the joy of meeting new ones.
In a way typical for her, the artist obliterates boundaries between the private sphere of life and practising art. Yet one more time she convinces us that, in her case, it is simply a day-to-day practice. By taking an unassuming communication form, she boils her art down to communicating on a personal level, creating conditions for intimate contact with the viewer. In their turn, the viewers may find out about a thing so obvious that it is banal – that friendship makes the best Christmas present and that everyone in a “kindness” attire (worn not only “for holidays”) can be like Santa Claus and feel noble, better, needed.
This is not the first series painted by Podlaska. This actually seems to be her creative method – painting usually works of small dimensions that turn into a narrative. It is worth mentioning at least a few dozen film performances, love “happy endings” (I Cry in the Cinema, 2000), a travelogue from a journey to Finland (There and Back, 2005), or the miniature illustrations for Asian films (Thirty Frames, 2011). This is not a coincidental connection with the cinema since the artist, as she explains, shares with the Tenth Muse an aptitude for building narratives. This is why in CoCA’s collection, the cycle of forty disclosures of Merry Christmas – not single pieces, had to be included. It is the only way in which the story about the existence of Santa Claus can become entire and credible. [A. Dzierżyc-Horniak]