WYSOKIE OBCASY.PL - WYBORCZA NEWSPAPER

INTERVIEW WITH MAGDALENA GARLAS, NB 11/2023, POLAND

An interview with Andrzej Pitrus-Kuguar for KINO Magazine, Poland, August 2023

‘Retrieving the power’

BUSINESS DOC EUROPE

Krakow FF National Comp review: Faces of Agata by Małgorzata Kozera

Article by Mark Adams

Polish artist Agata di Masternak channels her crippling illness into creativity as a way of understanding how other people have coped with their own physical traumas. Małgorzata Kozera’s intriguing film Faces of Agata astutely examines di Masternak’s masterful balancing of art and pain, with the artist herself an engaging narrator of her own challenging life story.

When she was just 16, Agata heard that, most likely, she would bleed to death within two years, after being diagnosed with a rare medical condition named hemangioma. On that day she was born again, but the subsequent struggle has been considerable. After 20 years and more than 30 facial surgeries, she lives in London and works as an artist who has turned her life with her potentially lethal disease into high art.

The film opens with footage of Agata working on a large canvas before a swift cut to a close-up of her face with plasters over her nose and forehead. She heads to Poland for yet another operation and afterwards comments: ”Let’s hope it’s the last one – if it’s not I’ll buy myself a rifle.”

According to Agata “love and hope” are the things that keep her going, and for a new art project she talks with older people who have gone through considerable pain and distress, with one commenting how it added ‘some special character’ to their life. Agata’s new art series is called ID Identity Series 2016-2020, of which she comments on some of her subjects: “The common denominator is not so much the level of pain, because it can’t be defined, but the extremes that they went through. And what they did with it, that they have become these very life-affirming…dinosaurs.”

When Agata’s face becomes even more deformed with recurring angiomas (growths made of blood vessels or lymphatic vessels) the doctors fear that they might lose her once and for all, but after yet another operation she is hopeful that she might get her life back.

Alongside footage of scans of her head she talks frankly about her feelings about the illness. “It wasn’t easy…I gave up many times first during domestic beatings and later during the endless bleeding,” she says. “Mostly already walking on all fours like a marionette without a master. I realised that surrender brings hope because there’s nothing left to do but to look forward with clarity.”

She begins to create more and more artworks that reflect what she has experienced over the years. Utilising and developing computer images of her head and scans of blood cells she crafts a series of evocative images that also help her deal with what she has been through.

Her disease and the pain it causes continue to accompany her, but more and more promising treatment options are being developed. Yet she discovers a greater optimism for the future that derives from her creativity.

Małgorzata Kozera’s crafts an illuminating and gently inspirational debut film that revolves around the importance and power of art as a way of dealing with pain and trauma. Blending striking artistic images with footage of her operations and film of her art work in her studio, the film succeeds in exemplifying redemptive and cathartic power of creativity.

Poland, 2023, 72mins
Dir/scr: Małgorzata Kozera
Production: Plesnar & Krauss FILMS Sp. z o.o.
Producer: Maria Krauss
Cinematography: Marta Stysiak
Editor: Anna Koc-Wittels
Music: Jan Duszyński
With: Agata di Masternak

ARTPLUGGED

Agata di Masternak Explores The Boundaries Between Life And Death

Near-death experiences inspire London-based Polish artist Agata di Masternak to engage in conversation with her divine truth, which empowers her work as she explores the intimate boundaries between life and death.

Following a debilitating diagnosis at sixteen, painting became di Masternak’s instrument of relief, helping her redefine herself and escape the shadows of her illness. Over 22 years, she underwent 41 surgeries which roused her first series of works, Big Heads, a visual diary of self-discovery documenting her illness and healing process.

Big Heads are large-scale paintings illustrating di Masternak’s illness through numerous surgeries and extensive treatment, unveiling her identity transformation. Through a myriad of overlaid faces concocted gestural strokes across the canvas, stressed with tapestry, wool, plasticine, and paint scrawled by charcoal marking, each face is an intense statement to di Masternak’s trauma and rebirth.

Currently, di Masternak is working on a new series titled Out of Body. In this series, she explores the unity of human connections and how we may feel disconnected from one another, creating a sensory experience through streaking colour fields across a silk backdrop striped with embroidery.She will be exhibiting her IDentity project at the Holocaust Memorial Centre, the Zekelman Family Wing in Michigan in 2024.

ARTPLUGGED

BOOMER MAGAZINE

DECEMBER 2021

BOOMER MAGAZINE

Identity has always been the main theme in my work. I am proud to present some of my paintings in the latest #boomer magazine. Thank you editors for selecting my work for this publication.

Printed version is available in Boomer gallery in London

The paintings come from Big Heads series which became my diary over 20 years. They depict my struggles, search for place in the world and understanding all 40 medical procedures I went through over the last 23 years. Keeping a painting diary helped me go through the worst periods in my life, brought hope and put things into perspective. Through exorcising the past I made peace with myself which was a key component for healing.

Link to the series

https://www.agatadimasternak.me/heads-series

ZABLUDOWICZ COLLECTION, LONDON

GROUP SHOW AND FUNDRAISING EXHIBITION

12.11-25.12. 2020

“It’s our pleasure to be able to support Women + Health to help raise much needed funds for their valuable work in Camden. The range of responses from the artists is a testament to the creativity and flexibility of women in times of hardship.”
Elizabeth Neilson, Director of Zabludowicz Collection

ZABLUDOWICZ COLLECTION

Womens Lockdown Art Exhibition