FINKELSTEIN

We are honoured to announce a posthumous representation of Alexandra Obarzanek.

Alexandra Obarzanek was born in Bialystok Poland at the end of the war in 1945. She grew up in Soviet Poland until the age of 13 and immigrated to Melbourne in 1958. Obarzanek exhibited commercially for a short period of time in the eighties, however the male dominated art industry at that time had a tremendous effect on her practice. Obarzanek, as almost concealed person about her identity, reflected in her paintings the observations of a shy person; watching others and how they performed their personalities, this was the concept behind the theatrical nature of much of her work. Obarzanek's engagement with ceramics began as a social and craft activity in the late 90’s and within a few years became her dominant art form. Less dark and serious, Obarzanek's ceramics had a more decorative and playful style adopting influences from more traditional craft and a tone of magic-realism optimism.