MALGORZATA OAKES (US)
Text/Translation GHA

Besides being born and raised in Poland, Malgorzata Oakes currently lives in the USA where she is working as a teacher for printmaking. She primarily works with experimental contemporary printmaking, especially non-toxic intaglio and electro-etching.

Here, she alternates the use of paper and traditional matrices with a contemporary approach, while playing with ecological materials and tools. In this way, her etchings seem to be a final product embracing her environmental views and nature.

The black, white and red lines used on Oake’s graphics form minimalistic landscapes. Oakes’ prints explore the topic of sustainability through the use of waste elements found in nature or everyday life in relation to emotions and our common memories. String fragments, plastic packagings, parts of sourced textiles ask for sustainable methods of working with waste in a different way.

When confronted with her artworks, the viewer is invited to connect with the importance of our surrounding environment and its problems. Oake’s graphics comprise observations of nature, memories of specific locations and architectural forms.

In her art Malgorata Oakes merges the topic of the collective involvement in the problem of ecology, raising the viewer’s awareness.