Monika Drożyńska Portfolio

Monika Drożyńska

Visual arts artist, embroiderer, activist. PhD Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow Poland. A pioneer of embroidery techniques in contemporary art and fabric in public space in Poland. She is interested in language, which she explores using hand embroidery on fabric.

EDUCATION

(1999 2004) Faculty of Graphic Arts, Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow Poland (2012, 2013, 2014) Embroidery techniques courses, Victoria and Albert Museum in London. (2018-2023) Phd, Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow Poland

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

She has collaborated with the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, the Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, the Contemporary Museum in Wroclaw, Mumok in Vienna, the Ludwig Museum in Budapest, Bozar in Brussels, Sotheby's. Tel Aviv. And with Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA, Academy of Art in Szczecin, Katholische Privat-Universität Linz, Austria, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

Works are in the collection of Bunkier Sztuki, National Museum in Cracow, Mocak Museum of Contemporary Art in Cracow, National Museum in Kiev, Lentos in Austria.

The tablecloths

The tablecloths were hand embroidered using sign language iconography, prison tattoo symbolism, Morse alphabet, Braille, road signs, evacuation signs, warning signs, information boards, iconography of political systems, corporate logos, graphics illustrating social movements, Victoria gesture, Georgian alphabet, Arabic alphabet, Africans, graphic drawings of constellations. Each work deals with a different theme. Each tablecloth is a multi component essay in which I build a commonality of communication and experience.

The tablecloth is a plane of encounter. It connects the cup, the plate, the hands, the body, the thoughts of the guest and the host. They all live under a constellation, distanced, proximity is a threat. The tongue is tangled, blue and has made a knot in it. The letters are ornaments. Gestures are words. Logic, reason and proportion have failed. The compote is tart, the soup is sweet, the cake is bitter. The hands on the tablecloth are connected and secure.

Złypiesexhibition , Muzeum Współczesne, Wrocław,

Pintsh/5

The protagonists of this work are three letters. German Ö, Ukrainian Г and Ć. Each letter has a story, a story related to power structures and forms of resistance. Each of them is the fifth letter of the alphabet; hence the title of the work.

Gathered around the letters, visitors can read the language stories, embroidered in English, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish. The work is 23 feet long is dedicated to the staircase. It can be read while descending or ascending the stairs.

The form of the work refers to the social sculpture of Katarzyna Kobro. Similarly, the colors, which correspond to the Austrian, Ukrainian and Polish national flags and Kobro's colors. 5 is a meeting of several countries, nationalities and languages. It is a Babylonian confusion that can be understood and not understood at the same time.

Pintsh , Catholic Private University Linz, photo Monika Drożyńska

Pintsh , Catholic Private University Linz, photo Philip Eglauer

Pintsh , Catholic Private University Linz, photo Philip Eglauer

Black on white

The literal title alludes to the form of the work and to the polish saying “czarno na białym” (black on white), suggesting that you know exactly what it is about.

I play with the statement, describing obviousness that is sometimes complex. In two works from 2017, I paired the words men and amen highlighting the role of men in the Catholic Church. I divided the word love (polish: “miłość”) into two headings: “miło” (nice) and oś (axis) to illustrate the complexity of this feeling.

BiałeKłamstwo,Galeria Kronika, Bytom 2017, photo Monika Drożyńska

Waterandwine , solo exhibition at Biuro wystaw/ Fundacja Polskiej Sztuki Nowoczesnej, 2017, photo Monika Drożyńska

Silver and Gold Thoughts

“Silver and Gold Thoughts” is a series of works that includes more than 100 embroidered fabrics. These are words or sentences caught from the environment and processed, written by hand embroidery technique on fabric. They can be vulgar inscriptions read on walls, snippets of conversation heard, fragments of advertisements, slogans heard at demonstrations or read in newspapers. The project has been in the making since 2015 and is still ongoing.

Waterandwine , Biuro wystaw/ Fundacja Polskiej Sztuki Nowoczesnej,

Diornotwar, 2022

2018

J’adorehardcore,2022

Łączy nas nienawiść do innych (We are united by our hatred of others), 2021

Wrażliwość księżniczki, wytrzymałość kurwy (Sensitivity of a princess, toughness of a whore), 2016

Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej w Krakowie,

UAPLGB

The title of the work is a combination of the letter abbreviations of the names of the countries Ukraine, Poland and Great Britain. The fabric is a form of sculpture. Its form fills and divides the space. The embroideries written on the fabric form a sign created by combining letters, the sign does not appear linearly but its shape emerges from the content, which is based on interviews with people with migration experiences. I do not include the transcript of the interviews in the work. I leave them in the artwork and invite you to read them there.

I decided that embroidery is a writing technique that falls between langue and parole, between language and speech between, word and sound.

Separated

The Victoria sigh was popularized by Winston Churchil as a gesture of faith in winning World War II. In the late 1960s it was used by hippies protesting the Vietnam War. From the 1980s we associate it with Solidarity. It is a sign associated with pivotal moments in history, as bringing hope.

The end of World War II, was the beginning of the division of Europe into eastern and western. The beginning of another totalitarianism. The Solidarity breakthrough in Poland brought privatization and wild capitalism. In the UK, Brexit was voted down, and in the US, Trump won the presidential election, rуligning politics with business. Putin launched the annexation of Crimea. A coronavirus pandemic divided the world between online and real, which began to threaten health and life. Climate catastrophe became inevitable.

The world has been divided and this will never change again. The two fingers in Victoria's sign have been separated. They describe reality as it is. Difficult, contradictory, unbearable. But these two divided fingers, further belong to the gesture symbolizing hope.

Oddzielone , 2020 photo. Grzegorz Słapak

Oddzielone , Biennale Warszawa, 2020, photo Monika Stolarska

Oddzielone , Europejskie Centrum Solidarności, 2020

Oddzielone , Galeria Miejska Arsenał, Poznań 2020, photo. Jakub Żarnowski

CONCERN/TROSZCZYĆ

T R O S Z C Z Y Ć. T R O S Z C Z Y Ć. To care means to look after, to take care of someone, something, or oneself. In Polish, “troska” also means to worry, bite and trauma. Can daily martyrdom be replaced by attentiveness and devotion? Monika Drozynska's work addresses the ethics and politics of caregiving and the emotions associated with caring.... The large, printed letters are already visible from the sidewalk on Marszalkowska Street in Warsaw, but to read the embroidered cloud of words, one has to come closer. Nine white canvases are dotted with slogans some crossed out, others in mirror image. To grieve, to trouble, to frighten, to take over, to worry, duties not feelings, feelings not duties. The artist calls her technique writing embroidery. It is a nonnormative way of writing, which involves combining different formal orders and different circuits of communication.

Embroidery writing is between: a book and a conversation with another person, grounded knowledge and colloquial imagination, mass language and domestic chatter. How does language affect the expression of feelings? Is there room for emotion and reciprocity in learning? What can be done to make caring a feeling rather than a duty? "

Biennale Warszawa,

TROSZCZYĆ,2021, Biennale Warszawa, photo Bartek Górka,

TROSZCZYĆ,2021, Biennale Warszawa, photo Bartek Górka,

Urban embroidery

In this project I used advertising slogans, excerpts from newspapers or sentences overheard on a streetcar using the DTP composition hand embroidery technique and floral ornaments.

I first embroider them on fabric and then reproduce them in urban spaces using billboards and banners.

Naszość,Bunkier Sztuki, 2010, photo Mateusz Torbus

LAREVOLUTIONESTMONAMANT , Instytut Polski, Paris, 2014

Ro/złączenia , Galeria Kuad, Istambuł, 2014

ThinkSmall , Galeria Labirynt, Lublin, 2015

Lessisenough , in cooperation with SKDZ Schule für Kunst und Design Zürich, fot Monika Drożyńska

OKruszynka

Monika Drozynska's 11 year old son, wrote a story about Okruszynka. The artist embroidered her son's story. The couple has collaborated several times before. They presented joint works at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art (2020) and the Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle (2017), Labyrinth Gallery in Lublin (2016).

The story written by the son and embroidered by the mother was mined. The work is in the form of a video, Tymon reads the text, and the letters became characters in the animation. The author of the animation is Jan Moszumanski.

OKruszynka, Kraków, 2021 photo Grzegorz Słapak

picture to watch the video

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Monika Drożyńska

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