MAJA GODLEWSKA, ALUMNI NEWS

Maja Godlewska was an artist-in-residence at McColl Center for Visual Art in 2002. She has a solo exhibition opening at the New Gallery of Modern Art on October 27, 2011 titled  "MAJA GODLEWSKA: ON TIGERS & PUTTI.”  

Her new work explores beauty, permanence and decay. She looks to phenomena that occur between the form and formlessness, order and chaos, things that seem permanent, yet are subject to change and evolution.

Rococo and Baroque architecture and frescoes fascinate her for their formal solutions: ascending motion and swirling compositions that are similar to nebulae, cumulonimbus clouds or glacial moraines and for their fleshy, ostentatious content. To Godlewska, they symbolize eternal beauty that transcends time. Physically, they are subject to decay and eventually, to deterioration. They are literally beauty threatened by time, as in Giambattista Tiepolo’s, a painter of her interest and admiration, depictions of Venus and Chronos. Frescoes, stuccos and azulejo tiles covered with water stains from leaking roofs and fungus growths provide her with source material.Her new body of work is inspired by her childhood in Central Europe and more specifically a two-month stay in Greenland where she was analyzing and documenting glaciers, icebergs, clouds, and fog.

The opening reception will be held on Thursday, October 27, 2011, 6-8 PM at the New Gallery of Modern Art at 435 S. Tryon Street, suite 110, Charlotte, NC 28202.  The show will be on exhibit October 27-November 27, 2011.