Magda Blasinska

About

Owl Mountain alludes to the myth of a Nazi train of looted treasure that went missing during WWII and is believed buried in passages beneath Owl Mountains, Central Sudetes, Southwestern Poland. The myth has endured, without evidence, since the war and through both communist and post communist periods. Its persistent popularity speaks of the allure of the unreachable, our want to imagine treasures greater than those we can see, and our desire for romance and gold.

Magda Blasinska’s work seeks to transmit the experience of wonder. Most recently oscillating between painting and installation, which utilises wheat reed forms constructed with use of endangered craft of thatch. This back and forth, labour intensive activity results in a humble yet distinct visual language, networking the two widely understood as distant disciplines (thatch and painting).

The title Owl Mountain also speaks to the owl as a cultural symbol, in particular to the looping presence of owls in Twin Peaks, widely broadcasted in Polish television in early 1990s and hugely popular. ‘The owls are not what they seem’ being a recurring pointer towards an even more mysterious realm. A world behind the world, a truth beyond the truth. This slipperiness of meaning echoed how television had been used to shape narratives just a few years prior during communism: How these stories often sat uneasily beside experienced reality, and against the backdrop of Catholicism and rural folklore. A world of unreliable and layered meaning where the owls were not always what they seem.

Owl mountain is a collection of new work concerned with value, treasure, and complexities of meaning.