Joanna Piotrowska shows the sinister side of family life in a subversive series

Date
3 September 2014

Family life can be strange, unsettling and oppressive as well as happy, funny and ridiculous, and it’s this sometimes-sinister underside of the domestic sphere photographer Joanna Piotrowska seeks to elevate with her series FROWST. Her black and white images capture ambivalence and double meaning in the family home; brothers and sisters lie awkwardly across one another and pull at each other’s bodies in strangely stagnant compositions, while oddly familiar environments are imbued with a quiet strangeness that’s not entirely new.

In fact there’s something about her work which feels vaguely incestuous then you’re experiencing them the way Joanna, a Polish-born RCA graduate, intended – loaded with double meaning and a vague discomfort. “I was trying to observe what happens with family members when they’re together and I was sensitive to the details,” Joanna explained in an interview with Dazed. “I focused on gestures which can be seen ambivalently, and ambivalence is known to be psychologically uncomfortable. When we’re not sure about what we see – when you sense there may be something unpleasant, violent or incestuous but can’t point out where exactly it is – you feel confused." It was this confusion which she sought to play on, she goes on. “Many people have very strong preconceptions about how the world should look, they take things for granted without reflecting on them and questioning common views and beliefs. I think it’s really dangerous to have that attitude.”

The photographer’s work will go on show in Emotional Resources, a new exhibition at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, from 19 September to 10 January.

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Joanna Piotrowska: FROWST

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Joanna Piotrowska: FROWST

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Joanna Piotrowska: FROWST

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Joanna Piotrowska: FROWST

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Joanna Piotrowska: FROWST

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Joanna Piotrowska: FROWST

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Joanna Piotrowska: FROWST

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Joanna Piotrowska: FROWST

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Joanna Piotrowska: FROWST

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Joanna Piotrowska: FROWST

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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