Conflict Enabler

I recently heard from Agata Bogacka: „The canvas is great. It lacks nothing.”
She believes that it is complete even before a painting comes into being and that, in this context, „painting is rather an act of destruction.” Despite this, the artist still decides to face the canvas and engage in this act.

It is not at all the case that Bogacka covers the canvas with paint. On the contrary, she reveals it and allows it to speak. For Bogacka, the canvas is a medium that guides her and enables her to illustrate—or rather crystallize, recognize, and even observe and investigate significant issues. This analysis unfolds simultaneously with the painting process. As Bogacka works through painterly challenges, she reaches the essence of complex matters concerning human relationships.

In the abstract series of recent years, the artist explores the interdependencies of forms while also addressing the situations we experience. She is interested in the dynamic configurations in which we find ourselves in relation to others and the world. The protagonists of her paintings are equal patches of color that touch while simultaneously passing by; they balance or confront and compete. Some surfaces sharply contrast with one another, while in other places they completely blend together, losing their boundaries.

In her most extensive series of paintings (Disagreement), the tension between elements coexisting—or trying to coexist—on the canvas intensifies. At the same time, the competition between the paint surfaces, observed by both the artist and the viewer, grows. They compete for influence and for a relationship with the raw canvas. Bogacka herself wonders whether the patches of color overlapping the canvas aim to conceal the canvas or, on the contrary, to reveal it. We do not know whether we are seeing layers gradually added or peeled away. Similarly, in the Declarations series, the overlapping surfaces seem to emerge from the canvas, only to reveal themselves as the earliest (most distant) layers of the composition.

However, this tension is not an intended or deliberately chosen theme. On the contrary, the essence of the artist’s pursuit can be illustrated by the work Equality Dream, where the colors of the rainbow either hide or attempt to emerge, become visible, and emancipate themselves. This is the overarching principle from which Agata Bogacka starts (and aims to arrive at): the equality of the painting’s elements, their agreement, and understanding. It is reality that speaks, exposing the complications of interdependencies.

Bogacka particularly portrays ambiguous arrangements, emphasizing contradictions, unspoken elements, or illusions. The mutual relationships of the surfaces in the paintings reflect our functioning in life: both on the micro scale of personal relationships and intimate connections, and on the macro scale—situations between groups of people. They relate to current arrangements, which may be either in flux or persistent. These relationships are further articulated by titles like Declarations, Disagreement, or Equality Dream. All of these can refer both to individual experiences and to those of entire communities. They address personal matters as well as social and political issues, often interchangeably.

Her works have a universal parable-like quality, stemming from a foundation in dualism and the oscillation on the boundary of opposites. Every life issue automatically becomes a painterly issue or vice versa—her compositional and coloristic explorations suggest to the artist threads of interpersonal relationships to analyze. The titular conflict here does not carry a negative meaning. It conveys the essence of Bogacka’s paintings: the encounter of two worlds, two concepts, two personalities, two different orders. It is a meeting that can simultaneously be a collision and a passing by. Conflict here is something creative, progressive, which must be understood and harnessed for further development. This is made possible through the medium of painting, via the canvas, which for Bogacka is the titular activator of conflict—it generates it, provokes it, and drives her toward understanding its meaning.

Jagna Domżalska