Art_of_Laura_Pawela,_Poland

The art of Laura Pawela grows out of her fascination with the contemporary world, in which the omnipresent media have created the situation of the erosion of the boundary between the private and the public spheres. The end of the 20th century removed art from its individual, handcrafted character and, in consequence, a significant part of artistic activity was brought to the zone of the virtual world and the Internet. Pawela has restored real dimensions to art. Within the long-term "Reallaura" project the artist paints pictures in the aesthetics of displays or "Commodore" or "Atari" computer graphics. The pictures present strands from the artist's life in the form of comics packed with little drawings with speech bubbles, developing in terms of meaning the formal aspects of "history in images", already utilised by Roy Lichtenstein. The artist criticizes the contemporary information society, in which a metaphysical message may be reduced to a banal slogan. We are immersed in the virtual world, in which it is almost impossible to recognize that which is true. Reality has been replaced by simulation, which became immediately accepted as obligatory, and communication became a blend of phrases. Pawela has, however, succeeded in entering the polemic with these truths - "no time for being ok". The basic form of artistic expression in the works of Pawela is the cold computer language of the Internet world penetrating our daily existence. It turns out that two apparently different worlds are becoming an integrated entity. The so-called "real" becomes less real than the virtual reality. Thus there is no objective reality, as there is no objective, generally binding, morality - "each has such a morality, as he has a nature " - states Nietzsche. The philosopher's theories have become one of the main inspirations for the project "In the church without magic", to be presented in the Contemporary Art Gallery in Opole. The works comprising the exhibition are a series of video installations. This cycle concentrates on the analysis of the system of values and criticism of their associated dogmas. The artist attempts to "contradict the established truths of social behaviour and the division of the world into that morally accepted and that fundamentally rejected". This is the first presentation of Pawela on home ground. The artist was born in Rybnik and completed her B.A. studies at Opole University. She decided, however, that her return to Opole would not be associated with an exhibition of a retrospective nature. For this occasion she prepared a new project, which is mainly composed of video images and objects accompanying them. Part of the material was executed "in situ" in the Jan Kochanowski Theatre adjacent to the gallery. Each of the works constitutes a separate story, their common denominator being a consistently realized theme. For Pawela the environment in which a work of art functions is particularly important. The artist deliberately limits the number of works exhibited, in order to create the appropriate conditions for their existence. It is important that each of the works has the appropriate amount of space, in which to breathe, protecting it against the impression of overload and a cacophony of messages. Similarly as in previous works also in this project one may observe the tension arising from untypical, contrasting juxtapositions, of totally polarised forms and contents: a sung out, perverse secret, curses uttered in an artificial language, artificial happiness created in advertisements, penetrated by real frustration. Peculiar exhibitions of "gloomy nature" as - as the artist asserts - "a source of anxiety and cosmic fear", a deserted bunker and a picture of some strange assembly. All these images invoke an association, developed at an unspecified time, with some forbidden practices. The works create a disturbing environment evoking in the recipient an irrational fear of the rejected phenomena, which, nonetheless, endure defiantly. The artist draws us into a mystic ritual, which we do not understand, which, however, intrigues and pulls us towards itself - as if we had come into possession of some impenetrable secret. We are lucky! We have won! Our patience and wish to understand have will be rewarded, if we ring and say the magic word: "macaroni" (as took place in the earlier work of the artist "Me and You and Everyone we know" from 2006). "In the church without magic" is part of a diptych, which also includes "Bloodbuzz Ohio". The artist plans the execution of a cycle of works in a town named Utopia in the state of Ohio (USA). The inspiration for it is the history of the deserted little town, whose founders believed that they were able to restore peace to the world. This conviction was, however, rapidly extinguished by a cataclysm - a flood. Pawela thus asks the question "how much are we able to devote in order to satisfy the narcotic need to implement an idea'"