Karolina Jabłońska Portrait Sketch, 2026

The painting draws attention to the levels of remove an artwork encapsulates, highlighting the process of arriving at a motif and its composition. In the process, Jabłońska's image becomes a nuanced example of meta-painting, in which a work refers to, and thematizes itself, as well as its own fictiveness. Yet, by depicting a sketch of a produced work alongside an unproduced one, the artist complicates both the very act of referencing and introducing a representation of a sketchbook within the image. By incorporating her own self-portrait and citing herself, the work can be understood within the context of an auto-theoretical impulse, a mode of artistic practice that combines theory with autobiography as a means for critical reflection.