Magdalena STARSKA (b. 1980), Knife, 2017

oil, canvas; 60 x 70 cm;
Signed, dated and described on the back: Magdalena Starska 2017 / KNIGHT.

The artist works in performance, creates drawings, sculptures and installations. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, she received her diploma in 2005 in the studio of Prof. Jarosław Kozłowski. Since 2008, she has been a member of the Penerstwo group (an artistic group of graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan founded in 2007, which, besides the artist, includes: Piotr Bosacki, Wojtek Bąkowski, Konrad Smoleński, Radosław Szlaga, Tomasz Mróz and Iza Tarasewicz). As a member of the "Penerstwo" group, she received the TVP Kultura "Gwarancje Kultury" award in the "Visual Arts" category (2011). In late 2007 and early 2008, she traveled for six months, studying the culture of South America. In 2014, she received a scholarship of the "Young Poland" program awarded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. She often carries out her artistic activities in public spaces within the framework of her preferred community ideas. She gently encourages potential participants to interact in an effort to rebuild trust and security in society in a busy world of mass culture, excessive stimuli and messages. He tries to reassure the potential recipient, engrossed in the rush of a career or the accumulation of worldly goods. In her works she often uses everyday objects such as sticks, jars, plastic bags, etc., turning them into sculptures. Her drawings, in turn, were described by Janek Owczarek, in the pages of the magazine
Noise in the following words: "Meanwhile, it seems that it is precisely this format that the artist treats as a private atlas of mental and formal divagations," further commenting on this part of her artistic activity: "(...) First of all: the mangled, mysterious worlds drawn by Starska on ash or transferred into three-dimensional sculptures do not describe anything, they are a value in themselves. Usually such attempts come off rather pale in the field of art, but Starska avoids the co leins of empty decorativeness by a wide margin. This is a rare example of art whose potential lies in the fact that it works, and we can't describe it or simply don't need unnecessary description."

Selected solo exhibitions and activities:
2015 - Time Flows Differently, Millennium Park, Zielona Gora; 2014 - One Blanket a Night, Generator Malta Festival, Poznań; 2015 - In Power Is Movement, BWA, Olsztyn; 2015 - Together We Will Survive Everything, Stereo Gallery, Warsaw; 2015 - Power Comes In, Manhattan Gallery, Łódź; 2015 - Without Power, Gdansk City Gallery; 2013 - Love, Gdansk City Gallery; 2013 - Plan on Open Wheels, BWA, Zielona Gora; 2012 - On Serenity, BWA Katowice, Katowice; 2012 - Dough-Face, Frutta Gallery, Rome, Italy; 2012 - Stillness, Kolonie Gallery, Warsaw; 2011 - Mountain of Spill, Kolonie Gallery, Warsaw; 2011 - Smallness, Stereo Gallery, Poznan; 2009 - Drawings, Leto Gallery, Warsaw; 2005 - Attention! Stairs, Pies Gallery, Poznań.
(Sources: szum.pl, kronika.org.pl, artloop.pl)