The main motive of my work is nature, vegetation and earth treated as the most important element – the origin of all forms of life. The contemporary dichotomy of “nature vs civilization”, “ecology vs human” has led to the loss of nature’s basic functions and original position, turning it into an object of conquest and development. At a time of omnipresent haste, environmental crisis and nature treated as the carrier of resources and mineral deposits, I would like to draw attention to the pace of nature’s passing and dying, but also show how it could become transformed anew. Owing to climate change, the extinction of endangered animal species, environmental pollution and accelerated exploitation of nature, the world realized that it has lost primitive nature, untouched by human hand. Nature is impermanent and unchangeable, but it may be created anew by different forms of artistic explorations. In my work, I would like to capture this process. The presented work is a print created in the monotype/frottage technique, with an imprint of a tree branch broken during a July gale. To make the print, I used a mix of printing ink and earth from Dolne Miasto.
Jolanta Gmur (Jol Gmur)
Graduate of the Graphic Arts from the Faculty of Art in Lublin and Université Rennes 2, Départament des Arts plastiques in France. She mainly works with prints, particularly lithography and painting. She lives and works in Dolne Miasto. She received an arts scholarship from the City of Gdańsk for her project A Map is Not Yet a Territory. She took part in a lithographic symposium Women in Lithography at the Museo de la Carcova, Buenos Aires (2020). In 2019, she was a finalist of the 3rd Pomeranian Art Triennial at the State Art Gallery in Sopot and was an artist in residence during the graphic arts symposium at the Mark Rothko Art Centre in Latvia.
Her most important exhibitions include: Haptic Colours, Żak Gallery, Lithography Online Exhibition, Megalo Print Studio, (Kingston, Australia), Shinano Primitive Sense Art Festival (Japan), Fresh Legs 2020, Inselgalerie (Berlin), Color 2020, CICA Czong Institute for Contemporary Art Museum (South Korea), 8th International Print Art Triennial (Sofia, Bulgaria), International Lithography Competition, II LITHO Kielce (BWA, Kielce), 9th International Printmaking Biennial 2018 (Douro, Portugal), Art Confrontations, Test Gallery (Warsaw), Lithography – Art through Slowing Down, Trükimuuseum (Tartu, Estonia), 7th International Symposium of Lithography (Tidaholm, Sweden), Contemporary Polish Lithography Review, Kobro Gallery (Łódź).