Between 1999 and 2004 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, at the Faculty of Graphics and Painting. She graduated with a degree in Applied Photography under Professor Grzegorz Przyborek and from the Photography and Video Image Workship of Professor Konrad Kuzyszyn. In 2006 she was awarded the Deutsche Bank Foundation Prize in the Spojrzenia / Views contest. She lives and works in Łódź.
Orlikowska's art is based on creating atypical, surprising situations, unexpected arrangements, extracting surprising elements from the common reality and putting them under a microscope. In her diploma video installation Istota / Creature (2003), an unclassified creature emerged from layers of bed linen on the screen. This being, searching for shelter, was supposed to personify human fears.
Many works by Orlikowska subtly take up the subject of evanescence. The series of large format photographs Danse Macabre (2004) on first glance captures common interiors – a flat, a vintage shop, a service station – and people connected to these interiors – a sick woman in her bed, a woman working on a computer, a mechanic – in panoramic shots. The quiet of these scenes is disrupted by the figure of a girl dressed in black with a cow's mask on her face who looks directly at the camera. Her presence turns simple scenes into vanitative symbols, which is also underlined by the title of the series, which discloses the common message of a wrecked car, of abandoned clothes and a person on her death bed. In 2005 the cycle Insomnia was created – also as a trilogy of large, panoramic images, and again trivial spaces photographed at night evoked a sense of a strange, almost metaphysical presence.
In three versions of the Movie about Worms (2003–2005) Orlikowska creates suspense, putting together classical music (Mozart, Philip Glass) and an image which is considered hideous and disgusting – worms. When they are piled together or placed against a white surface, they seem to dance compulsively, thus becoming decorative. Music becomes a tool of aestheticization. Once again one might think about the motif of evanescence and danse macabre, but what comes to mind even more vividly is the topos of ugliness turning beautiful trough art.
For the W czterech ścianach / Within Four Walls exhibition, which was organised in an abandoned building during Łódź Art Biennale in 2004, Orlikowska created Tonący pokój / A Drowning Room. The atmosphere of the building reminded the artist of her grandmother's apartment.
I decided to reconstruct an interior that I remembered from my childhood, with the furniture and bits and pieces from that room. Through cutting the furniture and immersing it in the floor, the objects were deprived of their original, utilitarian function. It also seems like the real space of the interior – designated by the ceiling, the walls and the floor – is unsettled, subsided.
– says the artist.
The furniture drowned, as if to become a metaphor of fading memories and the passing of time.
In the Short Message System installation (2006) Orlikowska replaced the messages found in fortune cookies with texts she received. The messages, taken out of their original context, reached individual recipients and their imagination.
During her solo exhibit Loop in Bałucka Gallery in Łódź (2007), the artist presented two monochromatic video works which were similar in style and accompanied by unsettling sounds. The first film (bright) showed some indeterminate liquid, while the second one (dark) a piece of soil moved by worms. The exhibition was based on contrast – light and darkness, quiet and fear, beginning and end.
Orlikowska's project Cisza / Silence (2007) – a series of photographs and videos – was inspired by pictures documenting crime scenes and the fascination with death in popular culture (for example in thriller and horror movies). As the artist wrote:
Photographs that I took for the project don't show drastic, unequivocal scenes of murder, but they highlight the understatement and obscureness of events – the mystery of places and objects which create suspense.
Author: Karol Sienkiewicz, October 2007, updated Oct. 2015, translated by N. Mętrak-Ruda, October 2015.
Selected Solo Exhibitions:
- 2012 – Spilsnienie, Galeria Wozownia, Torun, PL
- 2011 – Ciemne przejścia, Galeria Lubelskiego Towarzystwa Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych Lipowa 13, Lublin, PL; Plan Amerykanski, Galeria Zona Sztuki Aktualnej, Lodz, PL
- 2008 – 19,01, Fundacja Polskiej Sztuki Nowoczesnej, Warsaw, PL
- 2007 – Loop, Bałucka Gallery, Łódź; Cisza / Silence, Program Gallery, Warszawa; Silence, Galeria Program, Warsaw, PL
- 2006 – Agoraphobia , Piekary Gallery, Poznań; Still Life, Federico Bianchi Contemporary Art, Milan, IT
Selected Group Exhibition:
- 2012 – Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Rizzordi Art Foundation, St. Petersburg, RU; Es ist Zeit fur Turnschuhe!, Kuenstlerhaus Dortmund, Dortmund, DE; Medialny Stan Wyjatkowy, Muzeum Narodowe, Szczecin, PL
- 2011 – Oczy szukaja glowy do zamieszkania, Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz, PL; Marginalia (Biennale Fotografii w Poznaniu) , Galeria Oko/Ucho, Poznań, PL; Nagroda Fundacji Vordemberge-Gildewart, MOCAK, Kraków, PL; Long Time No See, Andel’s Hotel, Lodz, PL; Festiwal Sztuki Wideo “Punkty Widzenia”, Galeria Manhattan, Lodz, PL; Zawód artysty, Galeria Wschodnia, Lodz, PL; 13 sphere – Festiwal Sztuki Aktualnej, Galeria 13 Muz, Szczecin, PL
- 2010 – Moon Hostel and the movies, Galeria Manhattan, Lodz, PL; Prywatne Fragmenty, Galeria Sztuki Inny Slask, Tarnowskie Gory, PL; Pointing to the Centre, Westfalischer Kunstverein, Munster, DE; Plac Wolnosci, Fokus Lodz Biennale concurrent exhibition in public space of Liberty Sq., Lodz, PL; Mediations Biennale, National Museum, Poznan, PL; Miasto Lodz, Projekt Kordegarda, Warsaw, PL ; VIII International Festival of Experimental Arts, Manege, St. Petersburg, RU; Biennale for Young Art, MMoMa, Moscow, RU; Uncanny, Galeria Hit, Bratislava, SK; Politically Incorrect I, Federico Bianchi Gallery, Lecco, IT
- 2009 – Pokoj z widokiem, Galeria Wymiany, Lodz, PL; Wolność (od)zysku, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, PL; Biuro Podróży, Galeria Zona Sztuki Aktualnej, Lodz, PL; Akcja Rewaloryzacji Abstrakcji, Galeria F.A.I.T., Cracow, PL; 2 Biennale Sektor Sztuki, Górnośląskie Centrum Kultury, Katowice, PL; 13th Media Art Biennale WRO 09 – Expanded City, Wroclaw, PL; Water and Wine – Der Katholische Faktor in der Zeitgenössischen Kunst, Minoritienkirche, Regensburg, DE
- 2008 – Move on, Futura Center of Contemporary Art, Praha, CR;Podobne lecz podobnym, Galeria BWA Studio, Wroclaw, PL; Nuit de l’Europe, Identités photographiques européennes, Gare de Lyon – Gare de Bercy, Paris, FR; Friction and conFlict – cultural exchange and influences within north eastern Europe, Kalmar Konstmuseum, SWE; CDN, Festiwal Dialogu 4 Kultur, Lodz, PL; Red Eye Effect – Polish Photography of the XXIst Century, Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, PL; Remont Generalny, Galeria Biala, Lublin, PL; Photonic Moments, New Temple Gallery, Sarajevo, BA; Behind the Reality Principle, Museum of Art, Lodz, PL
- 2007 – Hmm... A problematic exhibition - Arsenal Gallery, Białystok; WRO 07 - Wrocław; Lilit - Program Gallery, Warsaw
- 2006 – Afterimages - Museum of Art, Łódź; Welcome to the media! - Królikarnia, Warsaw; Der raum zu vermieten - DB Kunstlerstudio, Berlin; Intimate architecture, abandoned architecture - Kronika Gallery, Bytom; The Luncheon on the Grass - Museum of Art, Łódź; "Grünewald 2" - Łódź Art Center, Łódź; Still Life - Federico Bianchi Gallery, Milan; Binary Cities - XXI Gallery, Warsaw
- 2005 – E-Flux Video Rental - Kunstwerke Museum, Berlin; Art Supermarket 4 - Tolerate me - Program Gallery, Warsaw; Culture Time - Program Gallery, Warsaw; "V13" - Manhattan Gallery, Łódź; Landing from Łódź - Modelarnia, Gdańsk; "Młódź" - Arsenał City Gallery, Poznań; Views - Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Grünewald - New Media Gallery, Gorzów Wielkopolski; WRO - XI Biennale of Media Art - Wrocław;
- 2004 – Beauty or Pictorial Effects - BWA Bielsko-Biała; Within four Walls - Art Biennale in Łódź; Fish eye 3 - Young Art Biennale in Słupsk; Control Image - Bunkier Sztuki, Kraków; BUntitled 4, Biennale Młodych - Polish Sculpture Centre, Orońsko