Family ties, mental health, crises and emotions are the main themes interwoven in the works of Karolina Balcer. “My brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and my father suffered from bipolar disorder,” the artist explained in her largest undertaking to date, the interdisciplinary “Happy Family” project from 2020. “They were both diagnosed late, which resulted among other things from a lack of knowledge, so now, relying on my own experience, I am striving to educate and destigmatize the topic of mental health.”

“Common Language”, created especially for the Refugees Welcome auction, can be interpreted as a narrative about the need for communication and seeking understanding. The tongues of flowers/mouths, resembling snakes, although complex and tangled, become one single (shared) organism. The work was created using the tufting technique (a method for making rugs by hand, using a device called a tufting gun), which the artist has employed in recent years.

Magdalena Komornicka