Artwork

Little Girl under the Apple Tree

2015

Medium

Painting

Artist

Małgorzata Wróbel-Kruczenkow

Poland

About the work

The painting comes from the Images of Existence series, which reflects on identity, the past, and family roots. The Little Girl under the Apple Tree depicts my mother in her childhood. The most important questions which are brought about my paintings in the series are the questions concerning identity. Obviously, it is not about the kind of thinking of the identity in which the painting representing an image of a human being is to picture their appearance in such a detailed fashion as to enable one to identify the person. The identity mentioned here, and the one which is asked about by the artist’s paintings, is the identity resulting from the sense of belonging inscribed into the genetic memory of our bodies and into the memory which consists of the accumulated memories from the moments experienced together. Therefore, these are such identity dimensions which the images focusing on a skin-deep reconstruction of a particular person’s present appearance may not tell us much about. The identity based on the memory is indeed hidden much deeper. The painting journey of seeking my identity and family identity is like a journey inward, from which we return better equipped with the tools to understand ourselves and the surrounding reality.