no title [Twin Sisters II]

Joanna Pawlik's art touches upon issues related to disability. The artist studies the situation of a body suffering from a loss together with its consequences for the sense of physical attractiveness, femininity, the sexual sphere and interpersonal relationships. Starting from her personal experience Pawlik talks about a loss in a way that is very subtle, tender, empathic and far from dramatising. The artist invited other women who were born limbless or have undergone amputation to participate in the project. In videos and photographs their disability recedes into the background. The participants of the project are presented as strong, independent, self-reliant persons, whose bodies constitute an integral whole. Their disability reveals itself only in other people's eyes despite the fact that the women themselves perfectly overcome various physical, architectural or social barriers. The aim of the project was to break numerous stereotypes and create a language that can be used to talk about disability.

Joanna Pawlik (b. 1974) – pursues painting, drawing, photography and video. Graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow; took her Ph.D. at the Faculty of Art, Pedagogical University of Krakow. The experience of disability has strongly influenced the social engagement of her works, in which she analyses the existing mechanisms of exclusion. In her films and photographs Pawlik addresses the problem of physical or mental limitations without pathos and heroization in order to wipe out the distance between the model and the viewer. Another important issues in her art are maternity and the position of women artists.