• MFA in Fine Art

self-other

Martyna Lebryk

Some take to the streets to show their concern, to join in a moment of a social agency where plural bodies assemble to take over; push, lament, negotiate, gain power and lose control. I see protest as a transitory interplay of corporeal beings, urban structures and the performative. Moments of body kinetics, where frustration and confusion are simultaneously the source and expression of the struggle at hand.

Crude materiality present in painting and sculpture references urban aesthetics where things happen fast; bodies pass in transit, assemble, become visible, and through that, political. The built environment supports these bodies, simultaneously regulating their movements and attempting to discipline.

Limbs in paintings are falling, slipping and losing balance. Their precarity and instability reflect the anxiety of times where no-one seems to be in control. Immobilised, they hesitate. Their awkward tension echoes a sense of confusion, which affects our moral, social and political hopes.