Beata Ewa Białecka – “Thank God I’m a Woman”

“[…] One has to have a key to the art by Beata Ewa Białecka or actually two keys. One is Christian iconography, the other is a banal, hypermedia iconosphere. In her world Białecka is interested in a woman. Not a particular woman, but a woman – symbol, a woman – icon. The word “icon” is important here. Białecka graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and studied in Prof. Nowosielski’s studio, so she got to know the possibilities that lay in the conscious transformation of an icon into a contemporary painting. In the beginnings of her artistic work she abandoned that experience only to come back to it and to enrich it with other elements which allow her to create paintings which have enormous power, which are monumental and universal. Białecka year after year has become more and more feminist in her painting. The artist more and more courageously has built a directory of Saints in which well known iconographic images of male Saints are replaced by women. St. Sebastian or the Good Shepherd are not men which defend patriarchal values anymore. These are women who enter male holy roles, become sacred and turn into new icons. […]”

Agnieszka Gniotek