GALERIA FOCO – 1.10 a 24.10

(inaugura a 1 de Outubro às 17h00)

Rua da Alegria 34, 1250-007 Lisboa

3ª a 6ª 14h > 19h

Sáb. 14h > 18h

Mia Dudek - Feelers

‘Feelers’ is a solo exhibition by Mia Dudek, where the artist presents a series of new works. Dudek’s practise is influenced by brutalist housing architecture and the global phenomena of urbanization. Her work investigates the tension and interconnections between the human body and the architectural forms. Dudek examines the notion of detaching body from the given structure and seeks new means of visual and physical representations of human existence.

The exhibition aims to observe the spilling over the limits of bodily existence and the liminality of both sensorial and architectural worlds. The main narrative is the customary strive of humans and their alienation through repression of bodies and the surrounding landscape. The wordplay of feeler - an animal organ such as an antenna that is used for testing things by touch and filler - a thing put in a space or container to fill it, is physically articulated by the selection of artworks. At Galeria Foco Dudek creates a sensorial environment with the fluidity of formats between traditional studio photography, images of site-specific housing structures and freestanding objects made of concrete, silicon and latex.

The new series of photographs shot in Lisbon - Inhabited - depicts the dwelling living conditions. What strikes the most are the visible cracks and circles, windows, structures of concrete used to fill the pores and grain, the insufficiency of given space for humans, the dailiness and its banality. The Fruiting Body series stands in opposition. The forms presented are fluid, natural and multilayered. It’s a body that accrues as a parasite, living depending on its base, which defines its being. The somehow unifying series of both structures are objects placed in the gallery accordingly. Compositions molded in synthetic materials used to cover or fill the gap, resonate the tangibility of the space and Dudek’s body of works, addressing the idea of proximity.

‘Feelers’ tends to undergo physical poetics and synesthetic experience. The show is rooted in the mythology of human performance by incorporating anthropomorphic elements and structures. The artist consciously and repetitively uses mediums and materials, which provoke questions of their metaphysical statues. Through vacillating between the human and the material structure Dudek constructs the ongoing story of what is imparted and what possibly could be redefined.

 

BIO
Mia Dudek is a Polish artist, working between London, Lisbon and Warsaw. Dudek graduated from the London College of Communication in 2012 and in 2016 completed her MA at the Royal College of Art, London, as a recipient of a Leverhulme Scholarship Award for her distinctive portfolio. She is currently doing her PhD in Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon (FBAUL).

Dudek’s work has been featured in a number of exhibitions around Europe as well as in publications, including Source Magazine, LYNX Contemporary and 24 Artists to Watch by Modern Painters, December 2014. In 2018 she has received the Special Jury Anamorphosis Prize for her self-published book MDAM, which is now in MoMA Library Collection in New York. In May 2019 Art Forum has features in Critic’s Pick for her Marsyas show in Galerist, Istanbul curated by Nick Hackworth.