Lidia Kostanek is a Polish artist who has been living in France since 2003, after her Master of Fine Arts in Warsaw.
Her work on female identity, gender and the condition of the human body comes to life in ceramic sculptures from 2013.
Present at many major events of ceramic art – Terralha (European Festival of Ceramic Arts, 2016), International Ceramic Biennial (Carouge Museum, Switzerland 2017), Triennale Boleslawiec 2018 (International Ceramics Centre, Poland), C14 (Salon de la Céramique contemporaine, Paris) – her works go off the beaten track, can also be found in scenes of the film «Suspiria» by Luca Guadagnino.
In 2019, she integrates the reference book «Céramique, 90 artistes contemporains» by Charlotte Vannier and Véronique Petit Laforet, as one of the world’s leading contemporary ceramic artists, whose works challenge, seduce and disturb.
Her sculptures challenge and explore notions of idealized femininity, seeking to invent a new relationship with the body. These works reject the dichotomy between delicacy and violence, seduction and repulsion, pleasure and pain…“Look at me!” they seem to say. “Don’t look away, even if it’s not comfortable. I’m not here to look pretty, I’m not here to question and please you!”
In his rather surrealist works – disturbing and transgressions – we find many levels of reading.