Karolina Jabłońska Boiling head, 2023

Presented for the first time at the Piana Gallery Foundation in Warsaw in 2023, Boiling head, is a monumental painting that belongs to the artist’s ongoing engagement with her pictorial alter-ego.

The work presents a large, almost doll-like head being dunked into a pot of boiling tomato soup by an anonymous figure. Jabłońska’s depictions of female figures—generally self-portraits—suggest strong emotions but also evoke a visceral response in the viewer. We feel the heat of the bubbling water, or in other works, the freezing cold, even if her figures, such as this one, appear not to mind.

Interestingly, the work also bears a sense of ambiguity: we can’t determine whether the head in Jablonska’s painting is being pulled from the bubbling soup, or is it being dunked in? Is the kitchen glove being used here as protection against burning one’s hands, or is it meant to prevent traces of the crime from being left behind? All of this is juxtaposed and overshadowed by the tomato soup, a comforting dish we all know and love.