Gosia Wlodarczak - Sydney

You are warmly invited to my exhibition titled LOOKING

Opening on 18 July 2007 at Boutwell Draper Gallery, 82-84 George Street, Redfern, Sydney, NSW; T: 61 2 9310 5662.

The opening drinks (on 6 pm) will be preceded by Sharing Space, an interactive drawing performance, which starts at 4 pm (18 July) and will continue for app. 2.30 hours.

You are invited to take a part in the performance Sharing Space (find attached a short description of Sharing Space).

Kind regards

Gosia Wlodarczak

Sharing Space
Drawing performance and installation

Since 2001 I have been working on a body of work which explores the idea of personal space and notions of security and personal safety (Personal Space/Safety Zone series). My work is a registry of the everyday and thus I do not work in an artist’s studio. My method of performance drawing is shaped and constructed in a home interior or a public space where life visibly goes on.

The Personal Space/Safety Zone works have evolved into the Shared Space series, a body of work, which investigates the social environment in which we live and engages with the growing awareness, anxieties and fears concerning safe/unsafe human relationships.

Shared Space series is the outcome of performances with social interactions. They are remnants, “by-products” of meetings and drawing sessions with a group of people: already known or just met, who responded to my invitation to be part of the Sharing Space situations which explore a mutual relationship, friendship and intimacy.

Works in the series are multi-panelled with a uniform height of 162 cm, which is my body height selected as a personalising symbol.

The first stage of the work (which becomes a background for the Shared Space) is prepared in my home /studio space. The second stage involves working and socially interacting with participants over a period of several sessions or just 15min -1 hour. The working sessions take place either at my home, in the home / workplace of the participant, or at the public space (such as a gallery), in Australia (next on 18 July at Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney) and overseas (in March 2008 the Sharing Space project is going to be performed and shown at Kentler International Drawing Space in Brooklyn, NY, USA).

The prepared linens become shared personal spaces. They are placed on a chair, on the floor, or are pinned to the wall. I sit, lean against, or stand on the linen in order to draw, whilst participant stands, sits, or reclines on the linen in their most comfortable position. I drew around us both - the side of their body or around their feet.

Drawing around another person’s body can be discomforting and requires a degree of trust, openness and willingness by the subject to share one’s personal space. The finished work
becomes a linear record of a number of interactions while the voids imprinted on the work reflects the presence, an outline of the time experienced together.

The interactions are photographed in progress by Longin Sarnecki.

Gosia Wlodarczak 2007