born in 1970 in Olsztyn
In 1995, Jabłońska graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where she has been a junior lecturer in the Drawing Unit since 1996. She is an author of paintings, drawings, graphic pieces, photographs, installations and performance activities.
Jabłońska’s art has been labelled as post-feminist – the artist discusses the status and the role of women in a traditional society. Her actions have a humorous and ironical character while being full of warmth, sympathy and playing with the viewer in a subtle and intelligent way. Jabłońska exposes the stereotypes of perceiving femininity, highlighting the “banal” activities customarily ascribed to women, such as cooking, household chores and raising children. The artist brings autobiographical themes to her art. She is also inspired by mass culture. Many of her actions can be classified as social activism and are based on helping those in need.
Elżbieta Jabłońska, Canis lupus, 2017, video, 15’00
The film is a single-shot moving image, in which two, sometimes three, wolves emerge from grey-green thicket. The animals observe, wait, get bored, and then leave, disappear from the frame in order to return after an instant. It depicts a state of suspension, potentiality, probability of what their incessant act of circling around the place might bring.
The image seems intriguing and symbolic, especially in the context of the Far-Eastern concept of the paths of our thoughts and the work performed on them. Our mind is akin to a dog on a leash, it can be tamed when held tight, but when we loosen the leash, the dog-mind begins to romp in the fields that are inscrutable, mysterious, unpredictable and often dangerous [by Elżbieta Jabłońska].
