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Michalina Wozniak - “When the illusion becomes reality”

Michalina Wozniak

(Poland, 1993)



Welcome to the enigmatic and dreamy world of Mrs. Wozniak. You can delight yourself with fabulous photographs, origins from analogic and digital. They are magnificent artwork. An art that rides between realism and surrealism. A dramatic expression, a cry of distress waiting get out of herself. That reality doesn´t felt. That weltschmerz described by Jean Paul.


Enter in her web is like to travel in a time-machine until the XIX century. A lavish "Lacrimosa" from the "Requiem" by Mozart starts to play as soon as we charge the page. The first photo is a portrait of a jaded person emulating a memory or a dream in high key. The third picture shows a winter landscape with trees without leaves and vastly dendriform, buildings blurred by the fog and buildings covered by the snow, while in the sky a flock of birds goes into the vast fog bank. Later, we see a group of congenital malformations. One several scoliosis is shown in one of the photos, being compared as a internal-external symmetry, showing one radiography and the back of the girl.


The death is very present too. We can watch a foreground partially hidden by a broken glass. A skull is reflected in the glass. Later you will use, again, a skull replacing the upper half of the face of the person portrayed. These images remind me to the ancient japanesse film from 1996 called “Tanin no kao”. A splendid film shot by the marvellous director Hiroshi Teshigahara and his photography director Hiroshi Segawa.




As well as Kertész shown a special interest in the hands, and the claimed director Bresson had the hands as a treasure in his films, Michalina shows too some beautiful shots of hands. The hand representing fragility, offering and power. The disease, grief, postmortem fetishism, the acceptance of oneself body, the struggle between sentimentality and reality, the antithesis between romanticism and postmodernism, the beauty faced with ugliness and imperfection.


Technically: she plays with the long and double exposure, and she also creates overlapping images, handling them with skill.


All this testifies the photography of this young polish girl that is only 22 years old.


Let me, therefore, tell you some about her, after being informed through an interview that I've done to her this afternoon.



Michalina Wozniak was born in Poland in 1993. Nowadays she´s studying german philology and graphic design. She has a part-time work in Lublin. She started shooting in analog, delivering the films in different labs in the city (she didn´t have home Lab). She´s now shooting into the digital format. She uses Lightroom and Photoshop in her daily work. I have not asked for it, but I think she is self-taught.


Michalina sees photography as a diary. She belives she is not good writing, then she uses the photography as her write mode. When she needs to express herself, she uses the art of photography. This way she can tunneling her emotions, feelings, fears, experiences, follies and weltschmerz.

She is fastinated by nature, literature, poetry, paranormal phenomena, naturalism, auteur film, photography from the XIX century, the aesthetics of ugliness, deformity and the different types of physical imperfections (scars, wounds,...)


Among the endless list of artist that she admires, there are acclaimed photographers of the XIX and XX centuries, such as: Gertrude Kasebier, Julia M. Cameron, Francesca Woodman, Sally Mann and Diane Arbus. In the field of literature she talks about Kafka and Stanislaw Lem. She loves poetry and in this field she chooses her neighbors Wojaczek and Poswiatowska. She is also fastinated by the visual impact of the Marina Abramovic´s performances, as well as the illustrations of John Bauer (from Sweden) and Victor Soren (from France).


As in Spain, the photography in Poland is poorly paid. Michalina thinks she couldn´t survive working as a photographer. She believes she doesn´t have the necessary social tools to cover weddings, baptisms and communions. This seems to be the survival mode of the nowadays photographer.

Well, I believe in this woman. I believe in her works and I believe in the passion she puts in each one. Each of her photographs is a small portion of her being shared with all of us. Michalina, you are a source of creativity. A diamond in the rough. So, if you ever don´t believe in yourself, then you´ll can believe in me, because I believe in you.


My best wishes from Santiago de Compostela. The town where I grew up. The city will welcome you with open arms.

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