In one of many work in Ewa Juszkiewicz’s new Venice exhibition, a lady in a protracted black robe and purple scarf perches on a rock, a lyre resting below her left hand. For these acquainted with Nineteenth-century French portraiture, this work by the Warsaw-based artist—and up to date market sensation—would possibly seem acquainted, and so it ought to. Juszkiewicz’s oil portray, which sits at nearly 9 toes tall, is impressed by an 1804 portrait by the French painter Francois Gerard.
But whereas each depict the identical topic—Countess Katarzyna Joanna Gabrielle Starzenska, a outstanding determine in Polish aristocracy—there may be one distinct distinction: in Juszkiewicz’s model, the topic’s face is totally lined by wraps of purple, white and black cloth. This aesthetic gadget has develop into one thing of a trademark for Juszkiewicz, who makes use of concealment as a method of drawing consideration to, and critiquing, historic depictions of ladies. As she tells The Artwork Newspaper: “I wish to construct my very own story of those girls, and undermine magnificence conventions and idealisations, particularly within the artwork from the 18th and Nineteenth century.”
Locks with Leaves and Swellings Buds at Venice’s Palazzo Cavanis (till 1 September) reveals how she has progressed on this mission over the previous 5 years, by a wide range of approaches to a topic. Included among the many 15 works, all accomplished between 2019 and the current day, is Untitled (after Joseph van Lerius) (2020), the place thick locks of blonde hair obscure the feminine topic’s face. There may be additionally Chicken of paradise (2023), the place the central determine is sort of fully engulfed by foliage. And Woman with a Pearl (after François Gérard) (2024), the place a lady is enveloped by a vibrant purple material, a single pearl dangling from her head.
In every portray, Juszkiewicz hopes to focus on the methods through which the portraits she is referencing didn’t do their sitters justice. In Woman with a Pearl, for instance, “I made a decision solely to maintain the pearl and canopy the entire portrait, which was very idealised,” she says. In her reimagining of Gerard’s 1804 portray of the countess, in the meantime, she hopes to attract consideration to the “passive” and “expressionless” depiction of the lady within the unique work, regardless of her being “a star of her time and function mannequin for different girls.” She additionally desires to convey to the fore the contradictions inside girls’s trend of the time, which whereas “lovely”, was additionally “uncomfortable” and “oppressive”.
Every of Juszkiewicz’s work have been chosen with the setting of the palazzo, constructed between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on the Giudecca Canal, in thoughts. “The unique parts [of the building] like marble are actually hanging, and I feel they’re in an important dialogue with my work,” she says. What’s extra, she provides, Venice extra broadly offers an appropriate backdrop, full of artwork and structure that mixes the “modern with the normal, like in my work.”
The present comes after a interval through which demand for Juszkiewicz’s work amongst collectors hit heady heights. In 2022, her Portrait of a Woman (After Louis Leopold Boilly) (2019), bought for $1.5 million at Christie’s—far surpassing its excessive estimate of $300,000. Curiosity has remained excessive, albeit with costs settling, for now, inside six-figures.
However this sharp rise to fame “hasn’t actually influenced the best way I work”, Juszkiewicz says. “I simply deal with the work and what I wish to say.”