Artist Statement

I was raised in a Polish household with my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. I was at the center of a generational dialogue spanning 9 decades across wars, displacements, borders being incessantly redrawn, communism and collective pain, and the resuscitation of the individual.
My work, like the identity of many Slavs, is an amalgam of fragments of those before us, borrowed and collaged together in an ad hoc fashion. I work in an ad hoc manner across many media and scales to cut into a cultural past that is at once distant and remarkably close, in the hopes that some bizarre truth leaks out. It is speculative and interrogative: Where have we been, and where might we go? Folk traditions, paganism, migration and politics are recurring themes, as they act like characters in a great debate between then and now. Serious as this all sounds, my work holds a humorous undertone; a soft primal chuckle ripples across each piece, severing old ties to allow for new ones.
Future agricultural societies dance in bacchanalian rituals through fields riddled with potatoes and crisp packets of bygone days. A class gathers to celebrate the harvest of the new world growing from the bones of a ruined one. Warrioresses ride to battle atop endangered reptiles. Colorful chandeliers emit beams of lights to ward off the spirits of globalisation. Potatos continue their silent growth as people learn to till a poisoned land.

These fragments, broken, rearranged, and sown together, serve as means to renegotiate the cultural identity and what we consider of value. Though I play with many cultural clichés (i.e. the potato or onion), my work is not about “being Polish”. Rather, I trace through my cultural history because histories lend an unusual glow with which to look at our present. Indeed, history seems to be repeating itself in the face of war even today. Old scars are back to the surface in vivid, thickly drawn lines, showing the lightning speed at which borders, lives, and what we consider of value can change.

I hope, in my work, that people across borders or identities find bits of the commonplace everyday world sewn together in new ways. I hope they enter into the work like catching pieces of dialogues mid-sentence, sounding at once strange and familiar, distant but very near.

ALICJA BIAŁA is an artist working across media and scales. Biała initially gained attention with her large-scale public paintings, followed by her politically charged Polish Cut-Out series. She has since worked across scales, ranging from architectural installations to large interior sculptural lighting, etchings, paintings, and more. Her work incorporates a mixture of folk and environmental themes that bring the political and personal spheres of contemporary life into close proximity. She has received widespread press, and multiple awards, and is in numerous private and national collections. Biała graduated from The Royal Drawing School and holds a Master degree from The Royal College in London.

CONTACT: ab@alicjabiala.com / @alicjabiala

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

• this is indeed a wonderful country, Galerie Hussenot, Paris, France, October 2023

• Riding Through Onion Fields, Szydłowski Gallery, Warsaw, Poland, August 2022

• Merersyde Totemy, public sculpture opening, Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK, July 2022

• Beneath the Soft Ground, Hard Ground, Incubator, London, UK, June 2022

• Pająki/Spiders, Bałtycka Galeria Sztuki Współczesnej, Ustka/Słupsk, Poland, April 2022

• Forest of Dean Totemy, public sculpture opening, Bristol, UK, July 2021

• Concordia Design, building opening, Wrocław, Poland, June 2020

• Polska, Galeria R+, Akademia Sztuki, Szczecin, Poland, 2019

• Polska, Leica Gallery, Warsaw, Poland 2018

• Wycinanki Polskie, Galeria Ego, Poznan, Poland 2018

• Wycinanki Polskie, Museum of Contemporary Art Krakow, Poland 2018

• Biala, Maroma Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico 2017

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

• Refugees Welcome, The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland 2023

• Nay, her foot speaks, Cooke Latham Gallery, London, UK 2023

• When the heart of a pig has hardened, dice it small, Kirki projects, Tinos, Greece, 2023

• The poet’s folly and the sovereign’s hand, The Wehrmuehle Museum, Germany 2023

• Royal Drawing School: Best of the Drawing Year 2021-22, Chrisrie’s, London, UK 2022

• RCA2022 Autumn Graduation Show, Royal College of Art, London, UK 2022

• ING Discerning Eye 2022, Mall Galleries, London, UK 2022

• Collage – klejone światy, Pawilon Czterech Kopuł, Muzem Narodowe we Wrocławiu, Wrocław, Poland 2022

• Envisage the Collage, Galeria Biala, Lublin, Poland 2018

• I like your work, Hockney Gallery, RCA, London, UK 2018

• Polki, Patriotki, Rebeliantki, Arsenal Gallery, Poznan, Poland 2017

• No title, MUTE Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal 2016.

SELECTED ART RESIDENCIES

• Dumfries House Residency, RDS, Scotland, February 2023

• The Moritz-Heyman Residency at Pignano, The Royal Drawing School, Tuscany, Italy, July 2022

• The Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art (BGSW), Ustka, Poland, March-May 2021

• AGA LAB, Amsterdam, Holland, December 2020-January ‘21

• The Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science and Technology, California, US, 2017.

SELECTED AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS

• Berek Trust, The Royal College of Art, MA Tuition Scholarship

• The Drawing Year, The Royal Drawing School, Full Scholarship

• Claus Michaletz Prize for Eastern European Art, Berlin Art Fair

• Stypendium z Funduszu Popierania Twórczości ZAiKS 2022

• Fundusz Stypendialny Talenty.