Magdalena Lapinska-Rozenbaum (b. 1986), "Dark Dreams," 2020

Biography
She graduated from the Faculty of Design at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. Lapinska-Rozenbaum has been successfully designing ceramics and graphics for years, as well as non-standard projects, including a neon sign for the Lukullus confectionery on Mokotowska Street in Warsaw, or the design and execution of a 100 m2 mosaic in "Zodiac" - Warsaw's Architectural Pavilion. Recently, she also designed the set design for a play. From 2011 to 2013 she was Art Director of the lifestyle magazine K MAG. She collaborates with cultural institutions as well as magazines and big brands, and her works have been presented at numerous exhibitions in Poland: Warsaw, Sopot, Katowice, Lodz and internationally: Berlin, New York, Cuba, London, Lyon, Havana, Tokyo. Lapinska-Rozenbaum is a multidisciplinary artist. In her works she combines ceramics, painting, printmaking and illustration, moving seamlessly from one medium to another. Her favorite materials are clay and porcelain. In her own words: "creating ceramic objects is like getting in touch with the earth, with something primal in me, but also something primal collectively in us-people. For me, touching clay is diving into my unconscious, pasting it. It's also communing with the elements, namely earth, fire and air. An object, in order to be "born," must burn through fire. This is very symbolic. The mental processes in us also have to burn through, we have to descend into darkness and transform ourselves in the flames." In her sculptures and paintings, Lapinska-Rozenbaum also touches on taboo subjects related to the body, sexuality and death. "Sexuality and death are actually the biggest taboos of our society. And yet Eros and Thanatos - love and death - are intertwined. If you're not afraid of death, of something ending, of dying, you're not afraid of sexuality, or life, either." - says the artist. The artist also conducts art and development workshops for women, during which participants stick their "totems of power" out of clay, i.e. objects created with personal intention to remind women of the creative potential that lies within them. In a world dominated by linear and rational thinking, Lapinska-Rozenbaum wants to remind how important it is to trust feeling and intuition.