Anka Dabrowska - artist

project funding 2006

My work is autobiographical and combines ideas of memory and imagination in relation to my upbringing in Warsaw, Poland. My practice is based on drawing but also embraces 3-D work, photography and installation. Since completing my MA in Fine Art in 2003, I've established myself as a practising artist: setting up a studio, exhibiting, working on commissions and installing exhibitions.

JGT Project Funding

I applied to the Juliet Gomperts Trust for project funding to develop an ongoing body of work entitled 'Hometown'. I wanted to make a new series of drawings that record the identity of my hometown, Warsaw, Poland. The funding enabled me to travel there to gather essential research material and purchase necessary art materials.

what I achieved:

Whilst in Warsaw I re-visited the three tower blocks and the surrounding neighbourhoods where I lived as a child,. I used photography, video and drawing to collect visual material for new drawings. By making use of libraries and museum archives I also researched the history of Warsaw tower blocks, my childhood neighbourhoods, Martial Law and the general history of Warsaw in early 1980's and 1990's.

consequently:

My practice has moved on considerably. As a direct response to my research, I made sixty 30 cm _ 30 cm drawings in pencil, ink and watercolour on paper. I then extended the 'Hometown' project with a new body of work comprising seventy drawings on found paper bags and twenty 3-D cardboard structures portraying the confined conditions of featureless blocks of flats in a rapidly expanding city. This is to be exhibited at the Oriel Davies Gallery in Wales in a show entitled 'Comfort Zones' opening on 31 March 2007. The exhibition includes works by 13 national and international artists and is going to tour for two years. The Juliet Gomperts Trust has offered me additional top up funding to cover my expenses in Wales. I have also been offered my third solo show at the Seven Seven Contemporary Art Gallery in London in November 2007 and been asked to participate in group exhibition at August Art Gallery in London in May 2007.

contact:

Anka Dabrowska
99 E
St George's Square
Pimlico
Westminster
London SW1V 3QP
E-mail: ankadab@yahoo.co.uk

www.feist-art.co.uk
www.apart-arts.org
www.bigosplanet.co.uk
www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk
www.sevenseven.org.uk
www.archive.balticmill.com
www.orieldavies.org