Bodybuilding, Berlin

Gabriela Jolowicz was born in Germany in 1978, graduated from the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts and has been living and working in Berlin for several years now. It was at Leipzig academy (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst) that she decided to go for woodcut, after focusing on drawing and other printing techniques.

Once the knife cuts into the wood, it is irrevocable. The knife and the rigidity of the wood force my hand to operate in a certain manner. The plywood I use only allows a certain amount of detailing. I execute the pictures in one single woodblock, printed in black. Instead of hindering me, these restrictions make it possible for me to find the image. -GJ

Her work is inspired and focused on the contemporary urban life. The stories of the artist’s everyday life, as well as her observations of her immediate surroundings, scenes from the life of Leipzig, Berlin and England, are rendered in the woodcuts. Gabriela creates woodcut “film frames” that document her reality, these scenes are full of urban corners, street freaks and night flies, but also show ordinary, home life. Here you will find everyday objects like books, newspapers, laptops, smartphones, furniture, cosmetics, buildings and plants.

It starts with an idea. The small pieces, like in this book, I just sit down at a desk in front of an empty piece of wood and just think about what I’d been doing, last week or yesterday, who I saw, strange people in the street. But now as I get bigger and more detailed, it’s more complicated. Work on a big print can take up months. – GJ

The individual elements of the black-and-white image, stratified, pulsating with life and stimulating, arise from memories, conversations, books, illustrations, internet content, private photographs, materials found or encountered accidentally, when all this is filtered through the imagination of the artist.

The woodcut is a visual medium of the past. Its original function as a carrier of information – rather than a form of art – plays into the perception of the onlooker. – GJ

Gabriela’s woodcuts were shown in solo exhibitions in Germany, Canada and Italy, as well as published in the form of an art book for the Lubok publishing house. This is the artist’s first exhibition in Poland.

The opening of the exhibition and meeting with the artist will take place on Friday, June 15th at 7 pm.

The exhibition will be open from 15 – 30 June 2018.