Work in Progress: Jolanta Dolewska, Breathless

A life ends when the body stops breathing. In the making of her project, Breathless, Jolanta Dolewska has photographed the internal organs of animals, their skins, and lumps of their body fat. In parallel she has photographed the scarred skin and faceless bodies of living people at the point of exhalation. The work builds a sophisticated metaphor for the vulnerability and powerlessness of humans reduced to biology. Stripped of political agency, without a voice, we are able to be (mis)treated like any other animal. In spite of all, there is lightness in the work.

Where does a project of this complexity originate? In previous projects Holding and Reservoir, Dolewska explores the contingency of photographic images, the architecture and power structures behind the judicial system and the functioning of gaze. Both of these investigations were partly inspired by family history. In a distant time and place, Dolewska’s grandfather was embroiled in a high profile legal case. Although exonerated, she too was the accused in a trial in Scotland. These experiences informed Holding. Dolewska’s father was a photographer and a collection of his negatives formed a springboard for Reservoir. Breathless follows naturally in this arc of development but draws upon Dolewska’s own direct experience of working with vulnerable people. Like most artists Dolewska works a ‘day job’ alongside her practice to pay her bills. In the past her job involved supporting and advocating on behalf of people struggling with issues related to poverty, dependency and mental health; issues that often came with legal complications. Dolewska rarely speaks of this experience, but when it comes to the surface her passionate sense of injustice is palpable.

Dolewska began her enquiry by buying a pair of lungs from the butcher, taking them into the studio and blowing the breath of her own vegetarian body into these lifeless organs to inflate them. This early experiment did not yield the results she was looking for but led in new directions. Chamois, a specially treated animal skin used for cleaning, became a useful material for playing with in the studio to make still lives and moving image, (with the assistance of a hair dryer). Some of the chamois photographs show anthropomorphic ‘bodies’ that echo Dolewska’s photographs of slumped, breathless, human bodies in a way that can only be described as humorous. The subject is heavy but the treatment is not. Dolewska’s studio process can be fun. Chunks of lard, the belly fat of pigs, appear rolled into lumpy balls or stand like drunken sentinels surrounded by darkness. Monochrome body scars are retouched not with greys to hide them or soften their appearance but with silver to celebrate them and make the ‘unwanted’ become more visible and valued.

What will become of this work? Dolewska is not finished with her experiments. There is more to do before the work is fully developed. A large bag of clay stands in a corner of her living room. Five by four inch contact prints on the wall show new directions. Plasticine plugs the ears and eye sockets of Dolewska’s models. Tiny specs of dust, the enemy of the photographic perfectionist, shine brightly on a print emphasised by silver. Scars appear without silver now, as bare, but healing, wounds. Dolewska is clear that this work belongs in an exhibition: “the downfall of the publication is that it is flat!” 

Ironically for a photographic project, Breathless feels anything but flat. It stimulates the sense of touch as well as sight. Chamois is spongy and soothing when wet but when dry it possesses a ‘fingernails on blackboard’ repellant quality. Lard is sticky and oily. Once touched it is practically impossible to shake off, but it is still a substance with its own strange attraction. Scars fall into the same category. We can be abhorred by the sight of them but, especially when the scars are our own, we run our fingers over them drawing out memories of their origins. 

Dolewska’s working process is intuitive and playful but it is also serious in its intensity and intention. Her exploration is underpinned by her reading of philosophy, her looking at a wide range of artists and above all by her lived experience. Although now a British citizen, as a first-generation immigrant, Dolewska carries a heightened sense of the limits of her own civic and legal rights. Things most people in this so called United Kingdom take for granted, she does not. She has seen and experienced too much to not notice and attend to the condition of humanity reduced to biology. Fortunately, Dolewska is an artist who can share her vision with us through her work. Thereafter of course, it is up to us what we make of it.

All images © Jolanta Dolewska