EXHIBITION: CELINE LEVITAN. THE LANGUAGE OF PEARLS

Exhibition in Wyspiański Pavilion.

Curator: Delfina Jałowik

The Language of Pearls is an exhibition of works by Celine Levitan, in which sewing becomes a form of pictorial thinking. The artist consistently defines her works as paintings, even though they are produced from fabrics, embroidery, and patchwork appliqués, lavishly decorated with sequins, faux pearls, and plastic stones. The material serves no utilitarian purpose here. It becomes the fabric of the image: it allows for the construction of successive layers of representation, saturated with colour, light, and meaning, which, as the artist herself emphasises, she would be unable to achieve in the traditional medium of painting.

The works on display are created intuitively, without sketches or prior plans. Compositions emerge gradually, guided by the rhythm of sewing, gesture, and associations emerging during the creative process. Titles often emerge only at the end, when the images begin to reveal their own narrative. Snakes, roosters, tongues, pearls, eyes, and female figures create not so much a closed system of symbols as an emotional and intuitive visual language. All works are powerfully autobiographical – the artist treats them as records of her own experiences, emotions, fears, desires, and inner transformations.

The exhibition title references the Jungian interpretation of the pearl as a symbol of transformation: that which arises from the experience of pain, tension, and confrontation with one’s inner self. The Language of Pearls becomes a metaphor for communicating that which defies rational description and is revealed through images, dreams, and symbols. In Levitan’s work, the tension between the intuitive and instinctive, and the ornamental, shiny, and seemingly decorative, becomes particularly significant. Faux pearls, sequins, and synthetic materials do not imitate luxury – on the contrary, they emphasise the fragility and illusory nature of societal notions of beauty, femininity, and identity.

Another important element of the exhibition is the double-sided monidło titled Woman’s Puzzle / Dress-Up Doll, inspired by paper dolls and the tradition of retouched photographic portraits. The work was conceived as an object encouraging viewers to step into the shoes of the subject and confront their own experiences with the artist’s perspective. The motif of assembling, dressing, and fashioning a female image becomes a story about identity constructed amidst social expectations, corporeality, and individual experience.

Celine Levitan (born Celina Kędziera, 1974) is a painter, graphic designer, and textile artist. A graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, she studied under Professor Adam Brincken. In recent years, she has been developing her own form of stitched paintings, combining her painting experience with that gained from years of working with fabric and embroidery to create decorative and functional objects.

Coordinator: Agnieszka Sachar
Visual identity: Rafał Sosin

Address: Wyspiański Pavilion
plac Wszystkich Świętych 2, Kraków.