magda.moonsavage
Magdalena Koscianska, Polish visual artist, designer and art educator born in 1986. Currently lives and works in Wroclaw. Graduate of art education at the Institute of Visual Arts in Zielona Gora (2012) and postgraduate studies "Cognitive Abilities Trainer. Memory, Attention, Creativity" at the SWPS University in Katowice (2020). Scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and of the City of Zielona Gora. She started her professional creative work between art high school and studies. Since then, she has worked mainly in the field of graphic design, visual education and illustration. For many domestic and foreign clients, she has designed various types of graphic materials, from branding elements, packaging and patterns to posters or animations. While educating, she has prepared and led workshops in cooperation with numerous institutions, including galleries: BWA Wroclaw, BWA Zielona Gora, BWA Jelenia Gora; the Gorzow Philharmonic; the Municipal Art Centre in Gorzow Wielkopolski; the Salony Foundation, the Lubuski Theatre and more.
Recently, she has decided to focus mainly on visual arts and her own projects.
In her personal, illustrative works, she has touched upon areas such as the relation with yourself and with others, or women's rights and their situation in Poland. She is the author of the poster and slogan Myślę, czuję, decyduję – "I think, I feel, I decide" which became one of the the most popular protest slogans of Women's Marches in Poland. She has also created drawings and illustrations symbolically showing the connections between technology, nature and human functioning in the modern world. Previously, people appeared mainly in her works, today she creates on the border of abstraction and invented worlds, full of organic forms. These forms are not an "addition" or background for the characters, as they were before. Now they become the leitmotif of the whole; they take control and encompass whatever comes their way. Human beings, if appear, blend into space, enter into a relationship with it. Their temporary presence reminds us that we are elements of a larger puzzle. They co-create this "organism", drawing from it and feeding it. The symbolism, however, remains similar to that in Magdalena's older illustrative work. Sometimes dark and slightly disturbing, and sometimes soft, lasting in blissful symbiosis – the shapes reflect the intricacy of relationships, the mutual influence on each other, the complexity of bonds and emotions.
Magda uses various techniques to create her works, combining painting and drawing media, digital drawings with photography. She also experiments with second-hand and deadstock fabrics. Recently, her interests have focused mainly on drawing experiments (both analog and digital), creating art objects, textile and wearable art. Additionally, she is involved in photography, capturing moments of silence and pause hidden in land- and cityscapes. Her photographic research often becomes an inspiration – and sometimes a background – for the painting and drawing forms she creates.
magda.moonsavage@gmail.com