{"id":16305,"date":"2022-07-15T18:40:25","date_gmt":"2022-07-15T16:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ggm.spinacz.com\/?p=16305"},"modified":"2024-07-26T12:36:15","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T10:36:15","slug":"under-the-surface-the-illustrated-world-of-joanna-concejo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ggm.gda.pl\/en\/16305\/under-the-surface-the-illustrated-world-of-joanna-concejo\/","title":{"rendered":"UNDER THE SURFACE. The illustrated world of Joanna Concejo"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Dates:\u00a021 January \u2013 3 April 2022
Opening:\u00a021 January 2022 from 6.00 PM to 9.00 PM
Venue:\u00a04G, Szeroka 37 Street
Artist: Joanna Concejo
Curator:\u00a0Adrian Chor\u0119ba\u0142a
Coordinator: Agnieszka Baaske
Visual identification:\u00a0Anna Witkowska
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 12.00 PM \u2013 6.00 PM

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Joanna Concejo\u2019s illustrations lure the viewer with their attention to detail and melancholy of the passing time, evoking the scent of childhood with their narrative power. Rather than to be watched, these illustrations are to be read and absorbed with all senses, bridging imagination with reality. Concejo creates her graphic worlds through understatement and ambiguity, frequently taking the perspective of a child. Naivety of the innocent look justifies the surrealistic motifs and moving beyond the logic of grownups. Yet often the perspective turns out to be dominated by nature, with plants and rootstalks moving to the foreground of the setting. The illustrated world is subtle yet marked by raw naturality and saturated in stories.

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\u201cIllustrating is not about depicting what has been written. I have to desacralise the text in order to compose my own story on its basis, because ultimately this is all I\u2019ve got. If I draw what\u2019s important to me, there\u2019s a chance that it will catch someone\u2019s attention. The writer\u2019s text and my story together give rise to a new value\u201d explains Concejo.<\/p>

Concejo often makes use of archetypal stories, such as Little Red Riding Hood<\/i> or Wild Swans<\/i>. Her books can be viewed as philosophical treatises: Kiedy dojrzej\u0105 porzeczki <\/i>(When the Blackcurrants Ripen), The Lost Soul<\/i> created jointly with Olga Tokarczuk, or Ksi\u0105\u017c\u0119 w cukierni<\/i> (Prince in the Pastry Shop) with the text by Marek Bie\u0144czyk. She does not shun difficult subjects such as the Holocaust, which she approaches in her book Humo <\/i>(Smoke). Her books have been published in Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Korea, Romania and Mexico. This proves that her stories have a universal potential while maintaining a very unique and lyrical style, with a healthy dash of a sense of humour.

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The exhibition called „Under the surface” invites the audience to Joanna Concejo\u2019s unique world, showing her work in an original way. Visitors will be able to literally enter into Concejo\u2019s illustrations and learn some of the secrets of her trade: from scaling techniques through cut-outs and embroidery, to interactive installations showing popular motifs from her works in form of a game played with the audience. One of the exhibition\u2019s go-to spots is a reading room equipped with Joanna Concejo\u2019s books, and the whole exhibition area is designed as a refuge from the rush of the external world for both young and old readers.

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Joanna Concejo<\/strong> was born in 1971 in S\u0142upsk, Poland. She spent her childhood in a small village attending the school and helping her family around the house. When she was 15, she left for Koszalin to go to the artistic high school, where she was remembered as a diligent and hardworking student. After graduation, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Pozna\u0144 at the Faculty of Graphic Art. She took a break after the first year and went to France. The leave turned out to be longer than expected, and when she returned to Poland to complete her studies, she was already married with a daughter. In 1998, she obtained a degree in drawing and illustration and moved to France where she tried to find her place in the artistic world \u2013 somewhere between the birth of her son, washing clothes and cooking.

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Her installations caught attention in 2002, earning her an invitation to the Busan Biennale in Korea. A year later, she showed her work in the contemporary art exhibition in Chelles, France. The subsequent years brought a few more opportunities for showing her works to a larger audience (Plattform Gallery in Berlin, Public Gallery in Paris), but at the same time, whether by fate or her own indecision, her enthusiasm slowly faded away and dissolved in the prose of life. For a couple of years, she only kept drawing a little.

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In 2004, she sent her drawings to Bologna Children\u2019s Book Fair and qualified to the illustrators\u2019 exhibition; this was the beginning of her career as a book illustrator.

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Since then, she has participated in a number of collective exhibitions: The Emperor\u2019s New Illustration<\/i>, Bologna, Italy (2005); Figures Futures<\/i>, Montreuil, France; Blue Book<\/i>, Iran; Le imagini della fantasia<\/i>, Sarmede, Italy (2008, 2010 and 2015); Tea with Alice<\/i>, Oxford, UK (2012); It\u2019s always the tea time<\/i>, Estonian Children\u2019s Literature Centre in Tallin, Estonia (2015);\u00a0 L\u2019illustration des contes<\/i>, Centre Andr\u00e9 Fran\u00e7ois in Margny-l\u00e8s-Compi\u00e8gne, France (2015); Little Red Riding Hood and others<\/i>, City Library in Eragny, France (2016); Little Red Riding Hood, <\/i>Centre Una Volta, Bastia, Corsica, France (2017);\u00a0 L\u2019\u0153il int\u00e9rieur<\/i>, Serpent Vert Gallery, Paris, France (2019).

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Solo exhibitions: Attorno al giardino<\/i>, Hamelin, Bologna, Italy (2008); exhibition at M\u00e9diath\u00e8que in Saint-Herblain, France (2011);\u00a0 Un pas \u00e0 la fois, <\/i>Nei rami in Bologna (2013); Les visages du lointain<\/i>, Mus\u00e9e Beurnier-Rossel in Montb\u00e9liard, France (2014); Dans l\u2019atelier de Joanna Concejo<\/i>, Angle Gallery in Saint Paul Trois Ch\u00e2teaux, France (2015); Historie osobne<\/i> (Peculiar Stories), Arttrakt Gallery in Wroc\u0142aw, Poland (2015); La Fabrique des images de Joanna Concejo<\/i> in Nougaterie Soubayran, Mont\u00e9limar, France (2017); The picture garden in winter<\/i>, Albus Gallery in Seoul, Korea (2017); Histoires fragiles\u00a0<\/i>in the Robillard Gallery, Paris, France (2018); Zgubiona dusza – jestem, rysuj\u0119<\/i> at Dom S\u0142\u00f3w, Lublin, Poland (2018), Concetto<\/i>,Galeria UA, Pozna\u0144, Poland (2018); exhibition as part of Biennale des Illustrateurs (Illustrators\u2019 Biennale) in Moulins, France (2019).

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Joanna Concejo regularly works with Le Petit Atelier de Paris in the field of functional design and ceramics. She collaborates with various illustration schools, including Ars In Fabula, Macerata and Scuola Internazionale del\u2019Illustrazione Stepan Zavrel, Sarmede, Italy, and also with La Petite Galerie in Reims and the Robillard Gallery in Paris, France.

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Her books have been published in Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Korea, Romania and Mexico. She has also worked with various magazines, such as DPI (Taiwan), Tiny Pencils (UK), Influencia (France), Kukbuk (Poland) and many others. In 2017, she took part in IKEA Art Event with nine other artists to create an original drawing for the event.

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She collaborates with Wydawnictwo Literackie, Poland as the book cover designer and illustrator of books by Olga Tokarczuk.

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Books:<\/p>

Il signor Nessuno<\/i>, Topipittori
Grand et petit<\/i>, L\u2019Atelier du Poisson Soluble
L\u2019Angelo delle scarpe<\/i>, Topipittori
Humo, OQO; Polish edition: Dym (Smoke)<\/i>, TAKO
Au clair de la nuit<\/i>, Motus
Cuando no encuentras tu casa<\/i>, OQO
I cigni selvatici<\/i>, Topipittori; Polish edition: Dzikie \u0142ab\u0119dzie<\/i>\u00a0 (The Wild Swans), TAKO
Entrez!<\/i>, Rouergue
Zimbo<\/i>, OQO
Una stella nel buio<\/i>, Topipittori
Un pas \u00e0 la fois<\/i>, Notari
Les fleurs parlent<\/i>, Casterman
Les visages du lointain<\/i>, Notari
Ksi\u0105\u017c\u0119 w cukierni<\/i> (Prince in a Pastry Shop), Format, Wroc\u0142aw
Little Red Riding Hood<\/i>, BIR Publishing; Polish edition: Czerwony Kapturek<\/i>, Tako
Quand les groseilles seront m\u00fbres<\/i>, L\u2019Atelier du Poisson Soluble; Polish edition: Kiedy dojrzej\u0105 porzeczki<\/i> (When the Blackcurrants Ripen), Wolno
Zgubiona dusza<\/i> (The Lost Soul), Wydawnictwo Format, Wroc\u0142aw
Ne le dis \u00e0 personne<\/i>, Wydawnictwo Format, Wroc\u0142aw (French edition)

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Coming soon:<\/p>

M<\/i>, Topipittori, Italy
Senegal<\/i>, L\u2019Atelier du Poisson Soluble, France

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Awards:<\/p>