Meet the artist Gosia Machon

Tell us a bit about yourself and your artistic career. When did you know that you wanted to become an artist and how did your path from illustration and jewellery design to fine arts unfold? 

I was born in Poland, Oberschlesien in 1979. At the age of 3 my parents fled to Germany with me and my sister from communist dictatorial Poland. In this particular stressful situation, I lost my language for a while. Instead, I drew and painted, every day. I still prefer images as a means of expression instead of words, it comes completely naturally to me. 

But I did not study fine art, I made a few detours for various reasons. I first trained in jewellery design. I wanted to learn a down-to-earth craft before I started studying.
Then I studied illustration because I was interested in the connection between image and literature. I learnt a lot – like the wide poetic language of images, the subjective perspective of a storyteller, about making books, about collaborations...

During my studies, I started doing commissions but realised with regret that, at least in the commercial illustration-area, there is a lot of interference and a lot of compromises are made in order to reach a wide audience. I also realised that my paintings lose their power when I develop them with externally imposed themes that should later be clearly readable. The decision to go into free art then had to do above all with my obsession to develop paintings in unpredictable and illogical processes that draw from my own sources. To decide for myself the degree of ambiguity, radicality and emotional depths in my visual language – images that have a meaning outside of commercial interests. I stumbled into the art business completely naive, but things have actually gone well.

What are the main topics that do move you in your artistic practice?

With my diploma I began an intensive artistic occupation with the subject of nature. What interested me during this time was the tension between nature and civilisation. The human fear of the wilderness. The garden-fence as a symbol of the need for distinction or demarcation. Over the years, I have repeatedly discovered new aspects of this topic. The uncontrollable part of nature. The wilderness within us. Although my paintings are the result of intuitive processes, they are nevertheless imbued with ecological thinking. Not in the sense of environmental activism, but of philosophical considerations like terms of humility, empathy, interwovenness… And most of all – my astonishment, wonder and fascination for the strangeness of our world, for the huge area that I don't understand, never will understand and don’t want to understand.

You say you work very intuitively. Can you take us a little deeper into your processes? How does a new painting or a series evolve?

It is difficult to answer this question. Because there is no one strategy, every painting bears another process and this also remains mysterious to a certain extent. However, intuition definitely plays an overriding role. I start a painting or a series with a loose intention, an idea of a motif or a specific colour decision. Then, when I paint, I intuitively connect to unconscious images and decisions. This leads me to results that have more to do with me and my idea of reality, than if I had worked with rational decisions and judgements. Imagination that comes from the intellect is often constructed and interests me less. My body, however, hides unconscious sources of images that are bottomless and it is an inexhaustible pleasure to conjure them up.

Your work oscillates between abstraction and figuration. What do these two ways of expression mean to you? And where do your characters and sceneries come from?

The figuration builds the narrativ level, it connects us to the world in which we live in, it creates the joy of recognition. But I have never seen my motifs with my eyes in real live, they are invented, they are protagonists of our psyche, of our inner theatre.

The abstract, undefinable and less detailed elements and the empty spaces are important to me for many reasons: They describe the unknown, the realm of not-knowing, which surrounds us incessantly. The areas of our perception, that can be found beneath the visual surfaces.
Only by omitting, by not saying, by not defining and specifying can the viewer become involved: The viewer's mind fills in these gaps with its own sensations and memories. It makes this magical moment possible when you look at a picture and suddenly a connection, a recognition, a touch arises.

The presence of colour, certain combinations as well contrasts or even monochrome tonalities are very outstanding in your work. How do you use colour?

Colour is the bearer of atmosphere and mood. Pink is not green. Yellow is not ochre. Every color – in combination with shapes and application and other colours – has the power of a mood that is hard to escape. Sometimes a chosen colour can become the most important protagonist in the painting. And I really really love mixing and deciding for colours – a huge sensual pleasure, that I savour every day anew.

Can you tell us about the importance of nature in your artwork and a possible relationship to your personal life?

When I started to work with the motif nature, it had a lot to do with a longing from the perspective of a city dweller. By painting landscapes, I was able to be in this place, that I had invented in a certain way. This longing and compensation still exists today, but when I now paint a landscape, an animal or a plant I no longer regard them as an object of my own interest. Today I perceive them as a subject, a seriously respectable opposite. Plants are individual persons with interests, they have made life on this earth possible, and they are much older than my thinking mind.

Its’ a philosophical subject and it’s also a very personal subject, because everything about and in me is also nature: my body, psyche, genes, my heritage, my yearnings, my urge to reproduce, my wish to feel connected, to overcome the fear of death… it’s all about nature.

When I paint, I try not to have these issues too much in my head, but I think every personal attitude is reflected in artistic works, even if you don't consciously construct this.

You have gained lots of experience in teaching over the years. What do you want to pass on to your students?

Hidden beneath the visual surfaces of our facts is a poetic world that can be discovered and expressed through drawing or painting and is always available as a source of inspiration and motifs. You don't need any special technical skills to access this world. But you do need to free yourself from your conventions and inhibitions, learn to trust your intuition and your joy –  and find a focus.

This is what I practise every day in my studio. My aim as a teacher is to encourage these processes. I see this as the basis for the pleasure of painting, of artistic freedom and creativity.

What is your vision for our weeklong course in Erlau?

My vision is an intensive artistic workshop in a perfect surrounding! I imagine us learning together and from each other, supporting each other and exchanging ideas intensively. But also how each individual person experiences creative freedom and pleasure, as well as challenges that encourage you to go beyond your usual boundaries – to create works that mean something to you.

About the artist

Gosia Machon (*1979) is a polish born German painter. She graduated in Illustration from HAW Hamburg in 2008 and has since then exhibited her work and projects internationally, including galleries and art institutions in Berlin, Paris, Bologna, Antwerp, Warsaw, Istanbul, Vienna, Tel Aviv and Kyoto.

Her figurative abstract paintings and drawings are created in intuitive processes and are driven by an inner archive. Her work draws from unconscious, autobiographical and collective experiences and memories. It repeatedly revolves around the longing for untouched nature.

This nature can be a biotope or a plant, and refers equally to the unfathomable meanders of our human psyche and body – the piece of wilderness within ourselves.

She received several awards including „Hamburger Arbeitsstipendium für Bildende KünstlerInnen“ 2023. Since 2013 she has been working as a lecturer and teacher for drawing and painting at several German art schools. Gosia lives and works with her partner and her two children in Hamburg, Germany.

Interview: Johanna Schmal / Photos: Gosia Machon and David Fischer Baglietto (last portrait)