The Dark Arts - Aleksandra Waliszewska and Symbolism

Polish painter Aleksandra Waliszewska creates dark, symbolic oil and gouache paintings influenced by historical artworks from Nordic, Baltic, and Eastern European regions. Her pictorial universe features supernatural characters and dark themes, set in dystopian urban landscapes and other Eastern European sites. Drawing from Slavic histories of the Upiór (the living dead), Waliszewska claims artistic and conceptual descendance from premodern art and Symbolist works of the late 19th and early 20th century. The Dark Arts presents a dense visual narrative, juxtaposing Waliszewskas' work with historical paintings and sculptures, and introducing a wider audience to a rich and understudied field of visual culture.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 220 pages
Publication date: 11 January 2023
Publisher: Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

A look at the dark, symbolic work of Polish painter Aleksandra Waliszewska alongside historical artworks that influence her.

Painter Aleksandra Waliszewska creates densely narrative, art historically saturated oil and gouache paintings. Waliszewskas pictorial universe is populated by supernatural characters and dark themes: devils, vampires, satanic creatures, possessed girls, apocalyptic scenes, bloodthirsty zombies, and other incarnations of the living dead. These characters are situated in dystopian urban landscapes, lost highways, deserted suburbs, gloomy housing estates, swamps, and other sites associated with the Eastern European landscape. Drawing from the specifically Slavic histories of the Upiór (the living dead), Waliszewska claims her artistic and conceptual descendance from premodern art and Symbolist works of the late 19th and early 20th century from Nordic, Baltic, and Eastern European regions.

The Dark Arts presents a dense visual narrative, reproducing over a hundred images of Waliszewskas in juxtaposition with dozens of historical paintings and sculptures. Shifting away from the dominant figures of French and Austrian artists, this revisionist look at Symbolism through an Eastern and Baltic lens will introduce a wider audience to a rich and relatively understudied field of visual culture.

Weight: 824g
Dimension: 183 x 294 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9788396302625