ANNA OSTOYA, 2018, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
'The first institutional survey of Anna Ostoya’s works in Poland took place at Zachęta in late 2017 and early 2018. It consisted of her most important collages, paintings and compositions shown in a new configuration. It allowed the audience to get acquainted with her artistic strategies, which reveal a strong compositional instinct, resulting in a complex dialogue of forms, threads and meanings, as well as a unique experience of colors and textures. Within this labyrinthine character of Ostoya’s work, a kind of spatiotemporal wandering is juxtaposed with linearly ordered action. One can perceive it as ceaseless being on the move, which depends on constant questioning, continual reflection, and the inquisitive thinking hidden in the formal layer of the works. It is a contemplation of the past and present, as well as of the idea of participation, which is particularly close to Anna Ostoya. Although she feeds upon modernistic narratives and postmodern practices, such as appropriation, she rejects the continuous vision of time typical of modernity, in order to freely penetrate the areas of history, art history and politics, studying the contemporary conditions of art criticism and the art market, economics, identity, feminism and ‘masculine power’.' Maria Brewińska, Introduction, Zachęta catalogue, 2018
Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw: Anna Ostoya, 16 Dec 2017 – 11 Feb 2018
WORK, 2013, oil on canvas, 90 × 68 inches (229 × 173 cm)
UN)MADE (AFTER FRENHOFER), 2017, acrylic on canvas, 75 × 95 inches (191 × 241 cm)
ARCHES, 2016, oil, acrylic, paper, papier-mâché and gold leaf on canvas, 30 x 24 inches (76 x 51 cm)