Exhibition

'Ode to Lieux de Memoire' 

An exhibition of unique state etchings by

KATE PIEKUTOWSKI

From my perspective as a first-generation child of Polish migrants, this exhibition depicts an imagined landscape. Evoking senses of memory and loss, my aim has been to investigate the tensions between questioned identity and socio-cultural hybridity. With the intention to suggest an unfolding of narrative, the work performs as a theatre, responding to experiences from travelling through Europe last year. Heavily influenced by German Expressionist Cinematography, my monochromatic palette, interspersed with highlights of red, ultimately speaks of a ‘patriotic fantasy’. The protagonist evident throughout this exhibition acts as a traveller or lost seeker, referencing photographs of my great-grandmother from early twentieth century. As I endeavour to re-experience the imagined, literary and historic homeland, I refer to the words of historian Raphael Samuel, who declared, nostalgia is the sigh of the historically orphaned. KP