Magdalena Soboń | Enchant the Real

Magdalena Soboń | Enchant the Real

28.11- 15.12. 2024
Opening: 28.11.2024, 18:00
Gallery Szewska / 16 Szewska Str.

Gallery curatorial team:

Natalia Czarcińska
Jerzy Muszyński
Dorota Tarnowska-Urbanik

Enchant the Real

For me, creativity is a kind of enchantment ritual.

When creating, I enter a space where spirit and matter interpenetrate each other. In this state, I withdraw from everyday life and the boundaries become blurred, and what is physical begins to resonate with what is spiritual.

I express myself through the medium of paper.

Through regular, meditative movements resulting from the craft of handmade paper, I establish contact with matter, which becomes a tool of expression and transformation. The body, acting as an intermediary, creates a bridge between what is tangible and what is fleeting. Between the world and the spirit allows me to root the creative process in the physical.

The repetition of gestures introduces a state of contemplation that goes beyond the act of creation itself, and for me art becomes something more than just an expression – it becomes a spiritual practice, a moment of transformation. Each gesture – immersing your hands in the paper mass, touching the material, rhythmic movement – is not only a process of transforming reality, but also penetrating its structure.

This process oscillates between control and acceptance of unpredictability. In this way, creating also becomes an act of humility, a search for balance between what I can shape and what escapes my will. By struggling with what is controlled and what escapes me, I learn to accept what cannot be changed.

The conjuring of reality is expressed in the need to give form to what is often untamed, what arouses fear, fascinates, and at the same time remains unknown. It is an attempt to find meaning in the inevitable. It is a dialogue that I conduct with the world around me, but also with my internal fears and desires. I conjure reality, giving it a new shape – I let it speak, while listening carefully to what it has to tell me.

Magdalena Soboń

Visual artist specializing in paper art. In her work, she explores the various possibilities of paper matter and natural fibers as a form of artistic expression. Using texture and structure, she searches for a universal language of expression. She creates large-format objects that retain the characteristic features of the fabric.

A graduate of the Faculty of Textile and Clothing at the Władysław Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. Currently employed as a university professor at her alma mater.

She took part in several individual and several dozen collective exhibitions. She received awards and distinctions for her works:

2021: Prix Coup de coeurdu CA at the Biennale Internationale du Lin de Portneuf in Canada
2019: Award of the Marshal of the Pomeranian Voivodeship at the 11th Baltic Mini Textile Ar
2017: Honorable mention at the 1st Biennial of Artistic Textiles in Pozna
2016: Honorable mention at Contextile 2016 Contemporary Textile Art Biennial in Portugal
2013: Grand Prix of the 14th International Tapestry Triennial in Łódź
2012: Honorable mention at From Lausanne To Beijing – 7th International Fiberart Biennale in China
2011: Honorable mention at the 6th International Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art in Mexico
2010: Bronze medal at From Lausanne To Beijing – 6th International Fiberart Biennale in China