Anka Dabrowska
Warsaw Streetscapes, 2010
Mixed Media on wallpaper samples
For the main corridors of Mile End Hospital, Dabrowska created six drawings, made directly onto wallpaper samples, showing snippets of streets from Warsaw, the artist’s birthplace. Using a complex interplay of aesthetic and thematic clashes, from floral wallpaper to Polish football team graffiti tags, the artworks seem delicate and personal yet somewhat uncanny.
The combination of domestic and urban, speaks to how the public intersects with the city. Dabrowska has said: “I’ve adopted the position of an outsider, [which means I can] respond to a sense of displacement increasingly common to inhabitants of contemporary metropolises. I combine my recollections with the present to examine the disparity between individual identity and collective memory.”
About the artist
Anka Dabrowska was born in Warsaw in 1979 and now lives in London. She earned her MFA from the University of Northumbria in 2003, and has exhibited her work extensively across Europe. Her work is held in various in private collections around the world.
Editions Available
As part of her ‘Material Worlds’ exhibition for the St Barts Trust, Anka Dabrowska kindly created three limited edition prints. The purchase of these prints will support the Vital Arts programme.