Maria Kossak is a multimedia and performance artist of Polish descent. She was born behind the iron curtain into a family of artists and writers. Due to the oppressive political climate and her family’s subsequent emigration she found herself in West Berlin during the late Cold War period. Throughout the 1980s the divided city of Berlin became her childhood playground.
In her practice, Kossak explores the historical connotations of gold and its ambivalent mediation between material power and spiritual transcendence. She employs gold as a marker to highlight cultural references and as an index of the broader social values associated with it. Drawing inspiration from Eastern European iconography, her work also makes reference to canonical Western styles of Art Nouveau and Abstract Expressionism.
MAGDALENA golden section light painting I (2019)
DANCING on the CANVAS of art history, I breathe life into the Renaissance drawing of The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo DaVinci through the figure of Mary Magdalene
MAGDALENA golden section light painting II (2019)
I breathe life into the Renaissance drawing of the Last Supper by Leonardo DaVinci through the figure of Mary Magdalene, dancing on the canvas of time.
MAGDALENA golden section light painting III (2019)
DANCING on the CANVAS of art history, I breathe life into the Renaissance drawing by Leonardo DaVinci through the biblically rooted figure of Mary Magdalene.
Special Agent Series – Female real life #cutouts (2018)
Photographic contemplation on the art business – homage to Gucci queen / fashion addict / appropriation artist #SylvieFleury
Many thanks for the cooperation on the project go to Dirk Skiba Photography
Real life cutout – “broken” – selfportrait
Real life cutout – “light” – selfportrait
Barbed wire series – “Dem Himmel so nah” – cutout III
The MARRIAGE between the ARTIST and her own VISON
OVIDS Pygmalion and Galatea – retold. The images are part of an installation which is going to be shown at the 2018 NEUKÖLLN ART FESTIVAL in Berlin.
Many thanks for the cooperation on the project go to photographer Dirk Skiba
Homage to DUCHAMP and WARHOL
The VENUS of BERLIN INSTALLATION is an hommage to Marcel Duchamp’s concept of the READY MADE and Andy Warhol’s golden MARILYN TONDO.
The VENUS of BERLIN PORTRAIT – part of the ONE in a MILLION- “Embraceless Beauty repainted” installation- (2016, private collection). Technique: mixed media on gilded brass, 110 cm diameter.
VENUS REPLICA No. 1, technique: water color and gold spray on polymer, size: 150 cm
VENUS REPLICA No. 2, technique: water color and gold spray on polymer, size: 150 cm
VENUS REPLICA No. 3, technique: water color and gold spray on polymer, size: 150 cm
Homage to Gustav Klimt
Selfportrait as MÄDA PRIMAVESI, Berlin 2011 (part of the Schwules Museums Berlin Collection).“
Shown at “ANDERERSEITS” Künstlerische Einwürfe zur Frauenfußball WM 2011. The exhibiton presented positions on women’s football, – as a field of GENDER DISCOURSE. Technique: 80 x 110 cm mixed media on cardboard.
Homage to Mark Rothko
Part of the ECHTGOLD exhibition @ Berlin art and culture festival NACHT UND NEBEL- November 2014 at Kindl Stuben Neukölln.
SOUND OF THE EARTH I, 80 x 110 cm watercolor, goldpigment and plated gold on canvas, (private collection) Berlin 2014
Homage to the Berlin-Neukölln neighbourhood
This diptych depicts the intersection of Flughafenstraße/ Karl-Marx Straße and was shown at “Cafe Schoenstedt” -LUXUS NEUKÖLLN -, curated by the Institut für Raumforschung in the context of the 48h NEUKÖLLN art festival in 2011.
FREIES NEUKÖLLN I Berlin 2011, mixed media on cardboard, 70 x 100 cm
