Justyna Žaklina Dunal

Justyna Žaklina Dunal is a graduate of Visual Studies and Art History programs at University of Toronto. She has participated in many group shows i Canada and USA and had shown as solo artist. Her paintings could be viewed in Canada at Circa Gallery in a solo exhibition 'Body Parts Continuum 'and in USA at South Shore Art Center in a group member show 'Black White & Shades of Grey'. Justyna has received the Award of Excellence at the Annual Juried Show of Fine Arts at the Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, as well as Special Recognition Award at the International Juried Art Exhibition in USA. She was a member of Parkdale Village Arts Collective, National Collage Society, Visual Arts Ontario, and Alliance of Canadian Societies of Artists.

Her works is a serch for beauty in flesh and bones. She is using compilation of techniques that best represent extreme aging of the body. Her work is reflection on personal dealing with an aging and evolving of the human body, the body that would not deteriorate so easily being captured on canvas. Her new figures threthen to dissapear into abstract, that moment just before they fall apart, as easily as each of us fall apart and disappear into unknown. The form is cut and held together with lines that represent ongoing life, echoes of past, present and future movement, that is essential to human life. Her interest in the structure and form within the painting is a serch for that almost tactile memory of flesh and bones, neuroticly constructed body, the memory that would last forever when captured on canvas. The new bodies are beautiful in their nakedness, bones without flesh, elongated or shortened, some twisted, but overall beautiful. Often searching for media that would best represent her images she is forced to left them unfinished, adding or taking away some of it, combining, pasting or covering other, constantly changing. It all adds to the need to represent, as accurately as possible, her feeling's at the moment. Most of the canvases that she create are large in format, some compilation of 3 or more canvases, which adds to the possibility of pulling the bodies even more apart literally.

Right now after long brake in art practice, she is returning to the art scene, talking about mature body and what comes after.