Malwina Chabocka graduated from Central Saint Martins in London and Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland. For a number of years, she worked across fine art, graphic design, illustration, animation and writing, gradually identifying her area and language of expression, before she made painting her primary focus. Ever since her London degree, she's been investigating the ideas around body, sex, and mental health, both in an artistic and academic context (BA thesis on fetishism, followed by MA thesis on masochism as a creative force for artists). Author of two children’s books, she developed site-specific art events, graphic design for short films, and scenography for theatre and operatic productions, including “The Burial at Thebes” opera at Shakespeare’s Globe in London and “The Little Prince” musical at the Musical Theatre ROMA in Warsaw. She has participated in solo and group shows in the UK, Portugal, Poland and the Netherlands. Since 2022, she's been living in The Hague, Netherlands, where she's a member of Stroom Den Haag, a professional artists' network.
She is represented by Zoe Garner & Oil Art gallery in Manchester.
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Artist statement
In my painting, I steer away from narrative and directness. I want the viewer to respond to my work on an emotional level and interpret it through the filter of his own experience and imagination.
The way I see it, painting is an act of putting paint onto canvas through instinct, intention and accident. It’s about finding the perfect balance between exercising control and letting go. Painting is not about manufacturing a best-selling product embellished with marketable slogans and trending hashtags. It’s a lifelong process of exploration and experimentation.
My work focuses on humans, our psyche and soma, and is an observation of how the body and bodily instincts both express and facilitate the emotional and cognitive evolution that happens continuously in one’s life. I am fascinated by the human mind, emotions and everything we don’t express and admit not just to others, but also to ourselves. I am inspired by the neuroscientific research on feelings being the direct perception of the internal state of the body and Freudian theory of the ego being derived from bodily sensations.
Human sexuality, being one of the fundamental drives behind everyone's feelings, thoughts, and behaviours, has been a large area of exploration both in the art and academic context. When I lived in London, I was immersed in the alternative adult scene and I wrote my BA thesis on fetishism and then later my MA thesis on masochism as a creative force for artists.
In my painting, I also draw from my past experience of working in physical theatre and performance, where the body expresses a story in itself. Hidden desires, repressed feelings, haunting memories, shame, pain and longing; passions and needs which escape socially accepted norms and fight for their reason to exist -- I like to observe how all these secret inner tales make their way into flesh, and subsequently onto my canvas. I am drawn to the intersection of the rational mind with the most primary instincts, which we are so unsuccessfully trying to curb. Through my work, I am inviting the viewers to explore the nooks of their mind and embrace the complexity of our psychophysical existence.
I believe art can allows us to look at ourselves through a new lens, and help us reconnect with the vulnerable side of our human being. It’s a place of reconnection – to ourselves and to others – and of expanding our notion of “we”.
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Exhibitions & projects
Solo Exhibitions
2023, Little Obsessions, Ancien Cinema, Luxembourg
2020, Intimacy, CU46 Project, Barcelona, Spain (online)
2019, Lisboetas, The Portuguese Embassy in Warsaw, Poland
2018, Holding In / Reaching Out, Tati, Lisbon, Portugal
2018, Lisboetas, Photo Eat Galeria, Amadora, Portugal
2014, The Hour of the King - Stories of the Lost, Gasoline Rooms, London, UK
2011, Painting, Scenography, and..., Museum of History of Kielce, Kielce, Poland
Group exhibitions
2024, Affordable Art Fair Battersea (upcoming)
2023, Manchester Art Fair
2023, Kunstbeurs Heemstede, Netherlands
2023, Gestalten, KV2, The Hague, Netherlands
2021, The Self-Portrait Prize 2021, Ruth Borchard Collection, London, United Kingdom (online)
2017, Abertura des Ateliês de Artistas, Espaço 62, Lisbon, Portugal
2017, 12x12, Galeria Arte Graça, Lisbon, Portugal
2013, The Makers, William Morris Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2013, Dazed and Refused, The Arch Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2012, Sophiscapes, Klub Studio, Kraków, Poland
2012, Dazed and Refused, The Arch Gallery, London, United Kingdom
2011, Coming Out, Sinfonia Varsovia, Warsaw, Poland
Residencies
2012, Protégé, London, United Kingdom
Theatre and art projects
2020-2021 Akt Kalender, Berlin
2019, Fly on the windscreen animation project, London / Warsaw
2012, Unpredict-a-ball, Rich Mix, London
2012, Tales of Tiles, The Ceramic House, Brighton, United Kingdom
2011, Shrek, The Musical Theatre in Gdynia, Poland
2010, The Little Prince, The Musical Theatre ROMA, Warsaw, Poland
2010, Twelfth Night, or What You Will, Theatre Academy, Warsaw, Poland
2009, Brooklyn, The Cock Tavern Theatre, London, United Kingdom
2008, Burial at Thebes Opera, Shakespeare’s Globe, London, United Kingdom
2008, Hamlet Opera, The Cochrane Theatre, London, United Kingdom
2007, The Crocodile Opera, Arcola Theatre, London, United Kingdom
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