Simple materials
Between 2009 and 2012 Bielawska selected materials and objects for her works that are normally used as supplies on construction sites, in house work, etc. – the "half-products," as the artist calls them, that are usually ignored. These include linoleum, plastic veneer, floor finishes and panels. She explains to Bogna Świątkowska in an interview from 2012 for Notes na 6 Tygodni:
They actually don’t have anything personal or characteristic in themselves, they are just neutral. But to me, they create opportunities for constructing forms which are partly rooted in our everyday reality, and partly detached from it, burying a certain order that we are accustomed to. An order of functionality and usability.
This shifting of roles of those mundane materials is fundamental to Bielawska’s output. By bending their functions, she intends to make them operate on the borders of meanings. At the same time, it is important for her to identify and follow the logic of the material she works with. In the catalogue for the 2013 group exhibition, The Splendour of Textiles, at Zachęta National Gallery of Art, she commented on this idea:
Textiles are materials that stay with us all the time, are closest to our body and touch, and thus connect directly with reminiscences and memory. Textiles, be it a dress, a tablecloth or a tent, easily assume the shape that we desire them to, and, with all their delicateness, are surprisingly durable.
Bielawska’s works from 2013–2014 included an expanded set of materials – the artist introduced more fabrics, clay, polymer clay, and aluminium elements.
Human scale
Bielawska always measures her works on a human scale – both literally and metaphorically. Most of the time, the artist creates works especially for upcoming shows, assembling them directly in the exhibiting space. While installing, she constructs the works according to her natural size, and measures one object against another.
Traces of human touch are, according to Bielawska, a natural feature of objects around us. By leaving her own fingerprints, allowing imperfections, or arranging the elements in ways that are temporary or ephemeral, the artist highlights the tactility and responsiveness of her objects to the surrounding.
Drawings
Next to her spatial installations, the artist often displays her drawings, which she treats as a separate area of her work. As she admits, drawing allows her mind to drift off, release itself from the restraints of material surrounding, create "visual puzzles," she says. The artist usually tries to transform this playfulness into real objects.
Models
Bielawska’s treats her drawings unlike sketches, although she also notices a certain potential in models that she creates for her works. She uses them to test out forms and proportions, even if the final result is not a direct repetition of a given template. To her, models allow a certain degree of flexibility – both physical and intellectual:
In a model, the weight, the physical properties, gravity don’t play such a big role. Besides, a model has the lightness of arbitrariness, the details are not as important, and what mostly counts is the relationship between the forms. When looking at models, we picture their large-scale realizations, but each person imagines them differently, depending on their sense of scale. What I’m interested in is how such a model is realized in the viewer’s mind.
Words
When working on the titles for her works or exhibitions, Bielawska often reaches out to her sketchbooks which include both drawings and text. Making sure to avoid literalness, she is not afraid to use titles that are longer and not directly related to the presentation of work, thus teasing the audience’s imagination and provoking abstract narratives in their minds. One example of such play with words is the title of her show at the now-vanished Czarna Gallery in Warsaw, – I Feel I Forgot Something. – I Think You Remember Too Much, which is an excerpt from Bielawska’s conversation with a friend. She also reaches out to poems or texts written by classic authors – even though they are her readings, and feed into her mindset, the provenance of the phrases is secondary to their poetic effect.
Views 2015
The Spojrzenia 2015 (Views 2015) exhibition at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art featured the works of Alicja Bielawska, Ada Karczmarczyk, Piotr Łakomy, Agnieszka Piksa and IzaTarasewicz – five artists from the 7th edition of the Deutsche Bank Award. Every two years the Views competition presents a wide and diverse context of young Polish art, since the nominees are always artists under 36 years of age. On this occasion, Alicja Bielawska prepared sculptures made out of simple metal constructions and fabrics knitted especially for this occasion, according to the artist's designs. The resulting objects, seemingly functional and with familiar shapes, have been transformed, taken out of everyday contexts and mental schemes. The artist forced the recipients to enter into a dialogue with her sculptures and to redefine them.
Bielawska explores the material world searching for the poetry of ordinary things. First, however, she creates drawings. These are not models or sketches of planned installations, but rather autonomous works – a kind of preview of sculptures. Bielawska pours onto paper lines, spots, colours, ideas and interpretations of reality, though only some of them eventually materialise. Words, letters, signs and poetry are another component of the artist's work. Titles of works attract attention, suggesting a specific narrative or a hidden story. These are often quotes, fragments of poems or snippets of private conversations. There's continuity in Bielawska's works: each subsequent work comes from a previous one and after a close observation you can often see inspirations even from a few years back. Regardless of whether the works are created for a specific place or not, the artist is invariably interested in the relationship between the sculpture and the space and how her work can fit into various interiors.
Soft Ground
Soft Ground is a Polish-Lithuanian artistic project created by Alicja Bielawska in cooperation with Kristina Aglaji Skaldina, ending the Polish artist's two-month residency at the Art Colony in Nida. Bielawska was invited to Lithuania by curator Justė Kostikovaitė, who introduced her to Kristina. It is her dance performance that the participants of the Soft Gound exhibition witnessed in the Design Space Sodų 4 in Vilnius. Bielawska has been wanting to use movement in her works for quite some time. Her previous works focused on drawing and sculpture. Ultimately, both artists came to the conclusion that fabric is a very malleable material, and so the entire choreography was based on a blanket. Skaldina moved around a very small space, marked out by a rectangular blanket, which she folded many times during the event. The performance took place at the opening of the exhibition in Vilnius, which featured of a series of objects made out of ceramics and fabrics, drawings and documentation of the performance.
Bielawska is particularly interested in how different surfaces evoke associations. Some unusual materials such as modelling clay can bring to mind very specific feelings. Textiles offer a wide range of sensations; they can be slippery, rough, soft or hard. In this project, the artist also introduced ceramics for the first time, which, as she admits, fascinate her. The transition from ductile softness to hardening in the process of kneading, burning, adding colour and enamel is something special.