EWA JUSZKIEWICZ

(B.1984)

Untitled (after Joseph Wright)

Footnotes

Provenance
Almine Rech Gallery, New York
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Exhibited
London, Almine Rech Gallery, Ewa Juszkiewicz: The Grass divides as with a Comb, 18 June - 31 July 2020

Literature
Robert Zeller, ed., NEW SURREALISM - THE UNCANNY IN CONTEMPORARY PAINTING, Monacelli Studio, 2023, unpaged, illustrated in colour

伊娃·尤斯凱維奇
無題（致敬約瑟夫·賴特）
油彩 畫布
2020年作

簽名：Ewa Juszkiewicz（2）2020（背面）

來源
紐約，阿爾敏·萊希畫廊
現藏家得自上述來源

展覽
「Ewa Juszkiewicz: The Grass divides as with a Comb」，阿爾敏·萊希畫廊，倫敦，2020年6月18日-7月31日

出版
《NEW SURREALISM - THE UNCANNY IN CONTEMPORARY PAINTING》，羅伯特·澤勒編，Monacelli工作室，2023年，無頁數，彩圖

Classical portraiture once stood as the most esteemed and authoritative art form in Europe. From depictions of monarchs and sacred figures during the Renaissance to later portrayals of everyday individuals, these works consistently mirrored the prevailing hierarchies and visual politics of their respective eras.

It is crucial to recognize that art history has largely been written through a male point of view. Celebrated male artists not only created images but also shaped enduring perceptions of gender, class, and identity. Nowhere is this more evident than in portraits of women, where the subjects often appear not as autonomous individuals, but as projections of the "male gaze": composed, graceful, and demure, embodying the ideals prescribed by a patriarchal order.

Within this context, the present work of Polish artist Ewa Juszkiewicz assumes particular significance. Through her distinctive visual language, Juszkiewicz forges a dialogue between past and present, initiating a quiet yet radical reimagining of traditional female portraiture. By exclusively depicting women, she makes an unequivocal declaration, reclaiming and reinterpreting images once defined through the male gaze, now re-envisioned from a woman's own perspective.

Ewa Juszkiewicz's approach is both intelligent and subversive. Using classical portraits of women as her foundation, she retains the technical precision and compositional elegance of traditional painting while overturning its ideological core. Her most distinctive gesture lies in the substitution of the sitter's face with organic or material forms, whether rendered as lush plants, cascading hair, or folds of fabric.

What appears to be a simple act of concealment becomes, in fact, a profound act of rebellion. In the conventions of portraiture, the face is the locus of identity, emotion, and recognition – the very anchor of human presence. By obscuring it, Juszkiewicz not only effaces individuality but also destabilizes the definition of "what a portrait is". These veiled visages, both obstructive and seductive, deny the viewer's gaze even as they invite projection, turning concealment itself into a site of revelation.

Her painting Untitled (after Joseph Wright), reworking Joseph Wright's Portrait of a Woman (1770), crisply manifests her conceptual project. Wright's original shows a woman holding threads and a needle – an intimate domestic vignette rendered into an idealized emblem of feminine labor shaped by the male gaze of its time. In Juszkiewicz's reimagining, the composition and details remain intact, yet the woman's face is enveloped in cascading folds of fabric, while her skirt dissolves into a rippling, silken surface. The gesture preserves aesthetic continuity even as it detaches the sitter from the objectifying narratives embedded in the original, transforming a once-familiar portrait into a site of estrangement and reinterpretation.

Interestingly, Juszkiewicz employs a painterly technique that approaches the sensibility of sculpture, allowing the folds of fabric that envelop the face to merge seamlessly with the textures of the clothing. This material unity recalls the marble continuity of Michelangelo's figures, imbuing the sitter with a sense of timelessness and permanence. With her face concealed, the traditional means of reading emotion are denied; yet this very act of erasure opens new avenues of interpretation. The woman is no longer a passive subject of observation but assumes an enigmatic autonomy – her silence becoming a site of resistance, her obscured visage a locus of mystery.

Juszkiewicz's practice does not constitute a direct rebellion against tradition, but rather a subtle act of transformation. Through gestures of obscuring and concealment, she liberates the female image from the confines of singular, predetermined identity, restoring to it a sense of openness and indeterminacy. Her figures resist definition – they could be anyone, or perhaps, for the first time, simply themselves.

古典肖像畫曾在歐洲美術史上佔據著無可撼動的主導地位。從文藝復興時期的皇權神權記錄，到後來逐漸拓展至平民百姓的日常生活，這一繪畫類型始終承載著特定時代的權力結構與視覺政治。值得注意的是，藝術史的書寫長期由男性視角主導，那些備受追捧的男性藝術家通過他們的畫筆，不僅記錄了人物形象，更構築了一套關於性別、階級與身份的視覺意識形態。特別是在女性肖像畫中，我們看到的往往不是真實的女性，而是經過男性凝視過濾後的女性形象——端莊、溫順、內斂，符合父權社會對理想女性的想像與要求。

在這一歷史語境下，波蘭女性藝術家伊娃·尤斯凱維奇的創作實踐顯得尤為意義深遠。她以獨特的藝術語言，搭建起古今藝術對話的橋樑，同時對傳統女性肖像進行了一場徹底的視覺革命。伊娃的作品全部以女性為描繪對象，這一選擇本身即是一種立場的宣示——她要從女性自身的視角，重新詮釋那些曾被男性目光所定義的形象。

伊娃的藝術策略極具巧思。她以古典女性肖像畫為藍圖，卻在繼承古典主義技法的同時，巧妙地顛覆了其核心內涵。伊娃最具標誌性的藝術手法，是將畫中女性的面部用植物、髮絲、織布等元素替代。這一看似簡單的改變，實則蘊含著深刻的美學革命。在傳統肖像畫中，面部是身份認同的核心，是情感表達的窗口，更是觀者凝視的焦點。通過遮蔽面部，伊娃不僅隱去了人物的個體身份，更從根本上挑戰了肖像畫的傳統定義。這些「面具」既是對視線的阻隔，也是對重新想像的邀請——它們同時具有遮蔽與揭示的雙重功能。

在《無題（致敬約瑟夫·賴特）》這一作品中，伊娃對約瑟夫·懷特1770年原作《女士畫像》的重新詮釋，完美展現了她獨特的藝術理念。原畫中的編織女工面帶甜美微笑，臉頰微紅，呈現出男性視角下勞動女性的理想化形象。而在伊娃的版本中，她保留了原作的構圖與細節，卻用層層疊疊的布料取代了人物的面部，同時將裙擺改造成水波紋般的絲綢質感。這一改動不僅使畫面在形式上更加統一和諧，更在本質上改變了作品的敘事方向。

特別值得玩味的是，伊娃運用近乎雕塑的繪畫手法，使面部布料與身體衣飾呈現出高度一致的質感。這種處理方式讓人聯想到米開朗基羅雕塑中那種渾然一體的物質性，賦予畫中女性一種超越時空的永恆特質。被遮蔽的面孔使觀者無法再像欣賞傳統肖像畫那樣，通過解讀表情來獲取情感線索。這一視覺上的「缺席」反而創造出了更為豐富的解讀可能——畫中女性不再是被動的被觀看者，而是擁有了某種不可穿透的神秘性。

伊娃的創作並非對傳統的直接反抗，而是一種以靜制動的轉化。她通過模糊與遮蔽，讓女性形象脫離單一的身份框架，回到更自由、更開放的存在狀態。她們可以是任何人，也可以只是她們自己。