Artist: Barbara Wesołowska

Michael Werner Gallery, London presents Empty Night, an exhibition of new paintings by London-based painter Barbara Wesołowska (b. 1984 in Wrocław, Poland).

Driven by impulse and intuition, Wesołowska paints with the intention of summoning an image, most often a figure, to the canvas. Wesołowska’s painting ritual involves “tricks” that she compares to alchemy, as she fervently searches for the right elements to guide her through the work. When the figure eventually arrives, the moment is potent, emotionally charged, and infused with a sense of hope.

The theories of Sigmund Freud offer a framework for Wesołowska’s process and a lens through which to view her paintings. Many of the titles of the works in the exhibition are words drawn from Freud’s writings. Wesołowska randomly chooses words and phrases that are not overly descriptive but still resonate. Freud’s idea of how memory can surface in the conscious mind and recede to the unconscious parallels the figures in Wesołowska’s paintings, which appear and disappear with shifting light or as the viewer’s gaze shifts across the canvas. In this way, Wesołowska connects painting to the fluid, uncertain nature of memory itself.

Barbara Wesołowska graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, London in 2013 and the Royal College of London in 2015. In June 2024, Wesołowska presented a solo exhibition in Statements/Art Basel with Stereo Warsaw. She has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions held at Michael Werner Gallery, Athens (2024); Silke Lindner, New York (2024); Stereo Warsaw (2023) and east contemporary, Milan (2022). Wesołowska has been part of group exhibitions around the world, including at Modern Art, London (2023). Wesołowska lives and works in London.