I lay and fly away

Any attempts to situate Maria Anto’s paintings within specific artistic tendencies and to explain her artistic approach through such categories as surrealism, metaphorical painting, naive art or magical realism are always somewhat failed. What often follows are statements that define the painter’s oeuvre as simply unique. Anto’s work has not been thoroughly researched until the present day due to the fact that the artist virtually disappeared from the Polish art scene after her three spectacularly successful decades in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

The exhibition seeks to reconstruct Anto’s working method. An insight into her archive offers the possibility to analyse and develop a better understanding of her work without attempting to formulate yet another definition. Photographs, texts and recordings from the private archive tell the story of the creation of images that originate from the dreams and everyday life of Anto, who – as Magdalena Ujma stated – “turned them [symbols] into a tool that allowed her to convey intimate content without the possibility of deciphering it.[1]” The oneiric visual appeal of Anto’s paintings operates akin to poetry – each element influences the subsequent one and creates a unique atmosphere, which also infects the viewer – “I lay and fly away, Up from the legs sleep’s taking me high, And behind my back there’s rain ain ain[2]”

The exhibition heralds the introduction of Maria Anto’s work to the Repository of the Arton Foundation and functions as a supplement to the exhibition Maria Anto (Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, 7 Nov 2017 – 4 Feb 2018). The project is the outcome of workshops pursued since October 2017 with Adelina Cimochowicz, Natalia Dorocka, Agata Grabowska, Katarzyna Kalinowska, Anna Palusińska, Marta Pogorzelec, Anastasia Roshkian, Vera Zalutskya and Monika Żurańska in collaboration with Zuzanna Janin, Marika Kuźmicz and Agnieszka Lasota.


[1]Ujma M., Świat nowy i uroczy, in: Maria Anto. Malarka, edited by: M. Jachuła., Zachęta – Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warsaw, 2017, pp. 49-52

[2]M. Białoszewski, Sen (Dream).