About
Artist Statement
CV
I am a Polish-American artist working interdisciplinarily using textiles, social practice, and print-making. Through my work, I hope to foster interpersonal and cultural exchange, bridging the divide between people from diverse backgrounds with the goal of promoting personal empowerment and collective action towards positive social change.
My perspective is shaped by a childhood spent moving through different cultures, languages, and socio-economic realities. I was born in Łódź, a post-industrial city built on textiles, once the center of commercial textile production for the USSR. My family left Poland as political refugees in 1980, and moved frequently over the next decade, finding community in wild intellectual Polish diasporas (think basement art parties and accordion dance music). My perspective is tied to this immigration experience, and to my family’s direct relationship to Poland’s Solidarity movement for workers’ rights. My interest in collectivity and radically were further shaped by the history and present of my adopted home of San Francisco’s Bay Area, where I was based for almost 25 years.
I use textiles as my primary medium in the studio, and in public projects as a tool for communication. I often reference domestic textiles such as quilts and curtains in my work. These forms and materials are familiar and accessible, and can hold important personal histories, invoking feelings of home and community.
For the past three years, my work has focused heavily on textile-based participatory projects, both in my individual practice and through my collaboration Feral Fabric. Individually and as part of Feral Fabric, I have worked with a wide variety of individuals including students, the elderly, activists, the homeless, and people with disabilities in California, Poland and Berlin. Encounter, collectivity, and exchange are always at the center of this work.
In the studio, I mostly make wall hangings, free-hanging panels and soft sculptures. Here as in my social practice, I am inspired by women’s work, domestic textiles and traditional craft processes. Frequently my work manifests as some combination of textiles and printing, be that digital or screen-printing, combined as textile collage. I often use site-specific and upcycled materials in addition to common fabrics like craft felt and upholstery velvet. My studio works are mashups of icons, relics, references to the domestic, and aspirational imagery from communist-era mail order catalogs and periodicals.
In addition to my art practice I also conduct art historical and academic research, and co-publish Feral Fabric Journal, an online scholarly journal that highlights radical textile production in art, activism, and countercultural movements. I am the Journal’s co-founder and art director, assistant editor and occasional contributor.
Currently, I am developing an online, participatory mapping project related to memory and community. I am also working on several collections of surface pattern designs for use thoughout my practice.
Artist Statement
CV
I am a Polish-American artist working interdisciplinarily using textiles, social practice, and print-making. Through my work, I hope to foster interpersonal and cultural exchange, bridging the divide between people from diverse backgrounds with the goal of promoting personal empowerment and collective action towards positive social change.
My perspective is shaped by a childhood spent moving through different cultures, languages, and socio-economic realities. I was born in Łódź, a post-industrial city built on textiles, once the center of commercial textile production for the USSR. My family left Poland as political refugees in 1980, and moved frequently over the next decade, finding community in wild intellectual Polish diasporas (think basement art parties and accordion dance music). My perspective is tied to this immigration experience, and to my family’s direct relationship to Poland’s Solidarity movement for workers’ rights. My interest in collectivity and radically were further shaped by the history and present of my adopted home of San Francisco’s Bay Area, where I was based for almost 25 years.
I use textiles as my primary medium in the studio, and in public projects as a tool for communication. I often reference domestic textiles such as quilts and curtains in my work. These forms and materials are familiar and accessible, and can hold important personal histories, invoking feelings of home and community.
For the past three years, my work has focused heavily on textile-based participatory projects, both in my individual practice and through my collaboration Feral Fabric. Individually and as part of Feral Fabric, I have worked with a wide variety of individuals including students, the elderly, activists, the homeless, and people with disabilities in California, Poland and Berlin. Encounter, collectivity, and exchange are always at the center of this work.
In the studio, I mostly make wall hangings, free-hanging panels and soft sculptures. Here as in my social practice, I am inspired by women’s work, domestic textiles and traditional craft processes. Frequently my work manifests as some combination of textiles and printing, be that digital or screen-printing, combined as textile collage. I often use site-specific and upcycled materials in addition to common fabrics like craft felt and upholstery velvet. My studio works are mashups of icons, relics, references to the domestic, and aspirational imagery from communist-era mail order catalogs and periodicals.
In addition to my art practice I also conduct art historical and academic research, and co-publish Feral Fabric Journal, an online scholarly journal that highlights radical textile production in art, activism, and countercultural movements. I am the Journal’s co-founder and art director, assistant editor and occasional contributor.
Currently, I am developing an online, participatory mapping project related to memory and community. I am also working on several collections of surface pattern designs for use thoughout my practice.