The essence of the "Birth" project is the combination of dance and painting. In the creative process, Justyna Grzebieniowska-Wolska explores the problem of transferring movement happening in time to a static painting. The author uses a variety of means to express movement: from teased out layers of texture, through the pulsating color of pasted papers to loose glitter reflecting light. For Justyna, the human being in the painting is the most important, most often captured in the movement of expressed emotions, inspired by Afro-Cuban dance, in particular the dance of Orishas - deities such as Elegua, Yemaya and Oya. The project used these works to become "actors" on stage and interact directly with the dancer, who also became an element of the image, a whole. Images like screens become part of the choreography. In the first sequence, the author creates a performance to her drawings, impersonating a woman from her own paintings. She draws inspiration for this sequence from Alvin Ailey's "The Cry" choreography, which she literally quotes, repeating gestures or stops from the paintings, or adding what is missing from the painting. It becomes like a continuation of it, but already beyond it. Even then, she adds her own story, drawing on Afro-Cuban rumba combined with elements of contemporary dance.

Justyna Grzebieniowska-Wolska dances tango, salsa, son and elements of orishas dance. The music - selected specifically for improvisation - accentuates the moments of stopping the image or its movement. The dancer moves between images, hides behind them, plays a game with the image. A follow spot (wandering light), used especially for the project, helps to pick out parts of the images or the dancer's costume to create a new image, emerging from the blackness of the stage. We also have a dialogue between the dancer and the figure in the painting. The painting and the dancer - telling a story - create a new narrative in the improvisation.

The project carries possibilities for its development. The correlation of dance and painting has a great power to convey and focus at the same time on music, movement and painting, so that we experience differently presented works of painting and drawing. It is a performance, not a vernissage. It is a deepening of the image through movement and sound.

The exhibition of collages at the Studio of the Polish Dance Theater in Poznan presents works from 2012-2023. This exhibition, by the way, is the artist's habilitation.

BIOGRAM

Justyna Grzebieniowska-Wolska - born in 1976 in Gdansk, Poland. In 1989 she attended Junior High School in Texas, where she took dance lessons. After returning from the States, she held her first exhibition at Dobiszewski High School in 1993. She studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, receiving a diploma with distinction in Prof. Jan Pręgowski's studio in 2000. In 2011 she defended her doctorate showing a series of paintings "In rhythm". She works as an assistant professor in the Department of Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

Selected solo exhibitions:

1999 - "Veronique's Veil" at the Center for Children's Creativity in Torun,

Selected solo exhibitions.

2002 - "With music in the background" at Wozownia gallery in Toruń,

2004 - "Painting" in ABK gallery in Warsaw,

2011/12 - "In the rhythm of..." in Wozownia gallery in Toruń, in Punkt gallery in Gdańsk, in BWA in Piła and in the European Meeting Center in Elbląg,

2011/12 - "Painting" in Wozownia gallery in Toruń, in Punkt gallery in Gdańsk, in BWA in Piła and in the European Meeting Center in Elbląg.

2013/2014 - "Dance with Space" at the Cultural Center in Ostrow Wielkopolski , at Window Gallery Ella Arps in Amsterdam,

2015 - "Justyna's collages" at the Humanisticum in Toruń,

2016 - Justyna Grzebieniowska's paintings at the Woolen Factory in Lodz,

2017 - Painting in the Władysław Lega Museum in Grudziądz,

2018 - Exhibition at Galerie Alte Feuerwache in Göttingen,

2020 - "TOTUART Encounters - Dance with Space" at Totuart Gallery in Warsaw,

2022 - exhibition of drawings "Dancing Emotions" at Cultural center Hermoupolis Syros in Greece as part of ERAZMUS exchange.

Participation in selected group exhibitions:

2004 - at the Evelin Brandt Fashion House in Berlin, at the TRAFFIC Art Gallery in Warsaw,

Participation in selected group exhibitions.

2006 - at Le Chateau des Arcys in France,

2007 - "Painting East Wall" in Lithuania,

2008/2010 - XXII Festival of Polish Contemporary Painting in Szczecin,

2013 - 6th International Pastel Biennale Nowy Sacz 2013 at BWA SOKÓŁ in Nowy Sącz,

2015 - "Dance in Painting" at ZPAP in Warsaw and Salute Felicita in Milan,

2016 - "Report 2015" at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Toruń and the Pentapolis group exhibition in Kragujevac, Serbia,

2021 - "Pentapolis Space" at Gallery 113 in Częstochowa and at the Dom Muz gallery in Toruń,

2022 - "Pentapolis Space" at Gallery 113 in Częstochowa and at the Dom Muz gallery in Toruń.

2022 - "Project Pentapolis VI" with the collage exhibition "Dance of Emotions" at the Art Gallery "Migawka" in the Cultural Center in Wloclawek.

Selected awards:

2004 - Grand Prix award in the painting category of the national competition of Young Artists Art Dea in Warsaw,

2012 - Third Degree Award of the Rector of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń for achievements obtained in the artistic field in 2011,

2013 - First prize of the President of the City of Toruń in the XXXIX competition "Work of the Year 2012" in Toruń.

"My creative path consists of series of works that form a picture of my search in painting. One could say, in the words of the poet Basho, that this path is more "a process of discovery than of creation." To the rhythm of African drums, the clatter of flamenco heels, Argentine tango and the waving dresses of dervishes, my new paintings are created. Tracing the development of dance - from the dance of primitive peoples to modern dance - has encouraged me to travel into the world of different eras and learn about dance from different parts of the world. This brings me to my little discovery - creating my own choreography on canvas inspired by different styles of dance.

As a figure in motion, dance has fascinated me for a long time. Mainly to the man and the fascination of dance, myself and my deepest dreams, I dedicate this series. Choreography attributed to dance, I want to move into the realm of painting, so that the stage turns into a canvas plane, and I myself become a choreographer in a painting. This is due to the combination of two passions dormant in me: expressing myself on canvas and in dance.

In my new works I want to turn the dance of figures into the rhythm of forms in space. Space becomes an important element of the painting, it seems to permeate the form of the figure, which, emerging or disappearing, forms a whole with it. The background of the painting is also in motion, as if seen from the position of a dancer: it spins, ripples, cuts the composition giving it more dynamism. With the help of painterly values such as texture, line, color, light, form and composition, I create my painterly choreographies, in which I want to strongly emphasize rhythm and movement as the main components of the painting.

Rhythm, or the recording of movement in time, is in my paintings a rhythmic incision of its structure. The line often taut as a string sounds, pulsating with its light, sometimes it is jittery, uneven and jagged vibrates with an uneven sound, sometimes it is barely audible like a trill, trembling, sometimes short and staccato, sometimes loud and expressive to resounding forte; in some parts of the painting, in turn, it is ripped painfully into the vivid white of the canvas or is simply a hole through and through - a shout of space."

Justyna Grzebieniowska-Wolska