Karolina Jabłońska Self-portrait, 2023

This work, executed in oil on wooden panel, presents a self-portrait of the artist. Shown outdoors, the figure shields herself against apparently windy, and cold weather conditions. By using a cropped composition and blowing up the subject matter, the artist commemorates the small moments from everyday life. Firmly rooted in her point of view, these commemorations have evolved into a distinctive hallmark of her artistic practice, where the ordinary transforms into enduring motifs.

Having been an important recurring motif since the beginning, Jabłońska’s self-portrait acts as a tool to explore multiple identities and emotional states. Images of her figures in unpleasant weather suggest analogies between weather conditions and mental and physical states. Appearing as desolate landscapes, in turn drenched, muddy or icy, these outdoor scenes emerge as sites for exploring personal feelings, all the while fully aware of the deceptive straightforwardness of such analogy — and wittily embracing the long history of landscape motifs as atmospheric markers.