The Eye, The Doe, The Raspberry

Basia Bańda takes the viewer to an area of intimacy and to the discovering and experiencing of sexuality. Her work, seen by critics as embedded in the post-feminist current, is an analysis of emotions, dreams and imaginings about sexual relations. The imaginarium used to build the narrative – naked figures with highlighted sexual features conspicuous, animal-like monsters with phallic forms, crewel and bead appliqués and knitted cardigans covering erotic scenes or the erotic comments to them – all reveal the anxieties related to the sphere of sexual life.

However pleasant to touch, it is not easy to define and determine what exactly the objects represent. The shapes that Bańda assigns to the figures and items in her imagination may be indicative of the efforts the artist continuously undertakes to find herself in the world of eroticism, unable to name the imaginings which have no equivalents in commonly known objects. The titles of the works are just as helpful as they are misleading. The Eye, The Doe, and The Raspberry have their specific referents, however, when compared to the works, it seems that their actual meanings should be looked for in colloquial and slang language: the doe is one of the synonyms of “woman”; a raspberry is a Polish term for a hickey – a trace of a passionate kiss left on the skin. The eye, which is associated with the anus in slang, is sometimes used to denote the vagina in feminist narratives. It is also the relation on which Alicja Żebrowska’s work, Tajemnica patrzy [The Mystery Looks] (1995) is based, in which by attaching eyelashes and putting on make-up, the artist makes the vagina look like an eye.

Bańda’s fabric objects have something in them of spicy toys with a surprise, the vulgarity of which is softened by associations with cuddly toys. Critics point to the relations taking place between the artist’s objects – pink, flesh-coloured, stereotypically feminine – and the works of Maria Pinińska-Bereś, one of the precursors of feminist art. Both artists concentrate their explorations on woman, her emotional condition and experiences. Whilst the maturity of heart of Pinińska-Bereś offers a broad scope of critical potential, the intended “immaturity” and girlishness of Bańda’s works facilitate the affirmation of the feminine experience and sexuality.

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