You’re Getting It Wrong

• acrylic, gouache, crayon on canvas, 2022

The featured paintings have been created over the last few years, which has been a very intensive period for the artist, resulting in a numer of important exhibitions and genuine interest of the audience in her narrative. However, the intensity of this mutual commitment, and even momentary euphoria, have been interspersed with the need to return to the precariat during the week and spend weekends working quietly in the home studio. Such a split may bring an irresistible sense of ridicule. Kubicka’s canvases most often depict confused, distorted, grotesque and somewhat clumsy characters, which she loosely classifies as self-portraits. In her universe, these characters are immersed in their dead-serious jobs, managing something, fixing it, explaining and observing the results, unaware of the comic effect produced by their absolute earnestness and commitment. However, the artist looks at her characters with sympathy and awareness that she herself is not much different from them – after all, she is neither a full-time artist nor an academic; in fact, it would be difficult to say what or who she represents.