The series of classes is related to the exhibition ‘Only Pain is Mine’, which is still going on in April. The exhibition is a story about women’s experience of Siberia and is made up of fragments of accounts of witnesses of history selected by the curators and artistic interpretations of these stories in the form of large-format paintings made by Edyta Urwanowicz.

— The Sybir Memorial Museum is not only a historical museum, there is also a place for art here — says one of the curators of the exhibition and initiator of the workshops, Karolina Mosiej-Zambrano, PhD. — You can show history through art, we proved it by creating the exhibition ‘Only Pain is Mine’. That’s why we wanted to include a proposal related to the creation process among the events accompanying the exhibition —explains the museologist.

— With this, the exhibition is dynamic and lively, and the paintings created during the workshops will be displayed in the museum space at the closing ceremony of the temporary exhibition — assures Mosiej-Zambrano, PhD.

On Saturday, March 23, the first of three workshops planned in the series by Paweł Matyszewski took place.

The painter comes from Białystok. He graduated from the Poznań Academy of Fine Arts, the Faculty of Painting in 2009 in the studio of Piotr C. Kowalski. He has showed his works — paintings and sculptures — at many individual and collective exhibitions. He has won numerous artistic awards and scholarships.

Matyszewski began the classes by explaining — together with Karolina Mosiej-Zambrano, PhD — what the roles of a curator and artist in the creative process are. The youth also had the opportunity to learn about the history of a portrait.

Then it was time to see — in the company of the curator — the exhibition ‘Only Pain is Mine’ and get acquainted with the large collection of portrait photographs of women — Sybiraks — that we have in our resources. Each workshop participant chose one of the photographs as the basis for their painting.

The teacher showed the youth the basic techniques of using acrylic paints and after such an extensive introduction, participants started working on the canvases.

At the future meetings, participants will continue working on their projects under the supervision of a professional.

— We will explore various painting techniques, especially focusing on the possibilities offered by acrylic paints. We will also learn to create gradients, streaks and hair reflections. You will learn how to paint the sky, mold or moss — announced Paweł Matyszewski before the workshops began.