Paulina Semkowicz uses the medium of monumental painting to create transitional, narrative – though abstract – spaces in which absence or presence becomes crucial to the viewer’s experience. Inspired by her many years of experience in theatrical painting, she transforms backgrounds into active stages for contingency, playing with themes that remain elusive yet deeply resonant. The titular Glaze, a site-specific fresco created for TRAFO’s underground exhibition space, evokes the liminal interiors of swimming pool changing rooms and bathhouses. It is, however, far removed from figurative literalness. The artist plays with painterly matter and light, conjuring the atmosphere of a place associated with transformation, uncertainty, disorientation, or dystopia.
My wall paintings create atmospheric spaces that become potential settings for imagined actions and their possible unfolding. I often refer to the theme of water, the architecture of swimming pools and tiles. These seemingly beautiful interiors are, however, somehow spoiled – traces of organic destruction, patina, and mold appear within them.
While preparing for the exhibition at TRAFO, I began searching for inspiration in the past of Szczecin – in its connections with water culture, sailing and historic bathhouses. The indoor swimming pool Stettiner Hallenschwimmbad, with its steam baths and showers, no longer exists, although it was once one of the liveliest places in the city. I was also thinking about the 1990s, about the transformations in Poland and the kitschy style of bathrooms from that time. In Kraków, my parents’ house used to house a shop selling “exclusive” bathroom tiles, with the entire interior lined with them to showcase the products. Later, a solarium opened in the same space. To this day, fragments of the walls with those tiles remain in the back rooms. I still remember the color scheme – browns, beiges, and whites.
The T-1 space at TRAFO literally resembles a drinking water tank. I want to personify it, to introduce an element of presence there – of the body, of memory – to evoke associations.
(Paulina Semkowicz)