Zachęta – National Gallery of Art

artist: Joanna Fluder
curator: Michalina Sablik

The Slime exhibition presents a selection of 140 recent gouaches on paper or canvas, and premiere installations created especially for the space of Zachęta. Joanna Fluder has developed her own artistic language that combines surrealism, personal mythology, humour, and a vivid imagination. In her works, she talks about women’s everyday experiences, motherhood, neurodivergence, creative work, the social role of care, and the relationship with the surroundings, especially nature.

The recurrent motifs of snails and insects are a metaphor for the experience of “inconspicuous persons”, which transcends species, and for their alternative ways of being – quiet, deliberate, and ineffective by common social standards. In weak, helpless, beyond-human beings, the artist finds the figures she needs to talk about her experience as an artist, mother, sister, and daughter, as well as patterns of emancipation.

For years, she has worked at home, creating her art on the kitchen table while also raising her children. This is reflected in the sketch-like, expressive nature of her art, often used to quickly record her dreams, memories, and everyday situations. For the artist, painting has become a form of therapy and a way to voice her opposition to social norms. Another important aspect of her work is cooperation with children, who inspire her with their imagination, bring back memories of her own childhood in the country, and help her unlearn the strict patterns of thought.

The titular “slime”, which refers to the trail left by the snail, becomes a symbol of creative existence. It stands for presence, action, and persistence despite pressure. The figure of the snail reflects Fluder’s artistic stance: experiencing the world with your whole body, carrying your home on your shoulders, and following your own rhythm regardless of the rules imposed by the outside world.

Joanna Fluder (born 1981) – a multidisciplinary visual artist who works with painting, video, and ceramics. A graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, she received her diploma at the studio of Leszek Misiak in 2006. Her interests include the relationship between man and nature, as well as gender and feminist topics in the context of living in the post-Anthropocene. Drawing on her personal experience and non-literal associations, she builds her own surrealist language to explore the tension between the social and the biological. She has been working on the JAD project, which combines her innovative illustrations with recycled pottery and has received the 2019 “must have” quality mark at the Łódź Design Festival. As an illustrator, she has collaborated with designers such as Kopi and 10decoart, and magazines such as “Zwykłe Życie”, “Smak”, “KTW”, “Wczasy Mag”, “Zeszyt Biologiczny”, “Gili-Gili”, and “Exklusiv”.