PORTRAIT OF THE SOUL / SELF-PORTRAIT – Olga Boznańska
The main motif in my works devoted to Olga Boznańska is her figure and her “soul portrait”. All the paintings are black and white. The multiplicity of lines, the directions of spots make these images appear as photographs of these people, and of Olga herself, subjected to processes of destruction. This operation separates the official image of the represented person from the viewer, making the image in the painting more complex. The series connected with Olga Boznańska is constituted by a series of intimate portraits and bigger compositions. There is also the “Unfinished story” photo series, which refers to the aspect of the close, intimate relationships of Olga Boznańska with… men, because here, apart from representations of the painter herself from different periods of her life, men also appear, such as Józef Czajkowski and an anonymous admirer of her talent and admirer of mademoiselle de Boznańska herself, whom we see in two photographs, stylized to late 19th century. This man is the author of the series. In two photographs presenting portraits of Olga there are died up plants – this is a reference to the “unfinished” story of our heroine’s emotional relations, a memory of plants / petals of flowers or of clover that she put in her letters to Czajkowski, as well as those that she received from him; this was also the case with the architect Franciszek Mączyński, who was in love with her. The small drawings “Portrait of a Frenchman” and “Portrait of a woman / Olga Boznańska” are sketches, drawn on pieces of paper literally bitten by mice, which is another reference to circumstances from the biography of the painter.