Karolina Jabłońska Woods, 2025

The work is from a body of work loosely inspired by an image Karolina Jabłońska's had in mind from a novel by American writer Ottessa Moshfegh. In the novel “Death in Her Hands”, a woman walking her dog in the woods finds a mysterious note, which sets off a series of reminiscences and events. Jabłońska adopts the narrative device of the note, transforming it into a recurring iconographic motif in this series of paintings. The mysterious shreds of papers in her paintings include both writing and drawings, often blurred by rain or dissolving in puddles of water.

This painting sets the stage with its dark rainy landscape. Woods are a motif that has also recurred in the artist's work as atmospheric marker, indicating personal and political states of being.