Gabriella Novak (born in Silesia, Poland) lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Novak recently received a scholarship from the Kungliga Konstakademien (The Swedish Royal Academy of Art) and works as an assistant to the artist Cecilia Edefalk. She is currently doing her MFA (Masters in Fine Art) at Academy of Fine Arts in Umeå, Sweden.
Gabriella Novak’s artistic practice includes; painting, performance art and installation. In her work she explores trauma in the form of the subtraction of identity and body. During the creative process she substitutes her body with robots, in part, or paints with them, inspired by their movement. The combination of robot and human body emphasizes a sense of disturbance and makes the body appear traumatic.
Novak says: ”for me, repetition of figures, movement and lines in my works has a visual relation to the concept of trauma. Painting by robots became also a way to express my body illness due to traumatic experiences. And, this co-evolving process with my “artificial bodies” gives me possibilities to create art that I couldn’t make with my own body, or even imagine it”.
EDUCATION
2020-22 Master in Fine Arts, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå (Sweden)
2013-16 Bachelor in Fine Arts, Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå (Sweden)
2011-12 Art and Film History, Gävle University (Sweden)
2010-11 Photography, Valand Academy, HFF, Gothenburg. (Sweden)
2009-11 Philosophy of photography, Karlstad University (Sweden)
2008-09 School of Performing Arts, Kulturama, Stockholm (Sweden)
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EXHIBITIONS (RECENT)
MA1 Group Show ‘everything will be alright’, Gallery Alva, Umeå, Sweden, 2021
Show ‘Close distance’ with Audrey Hurd, curated by Edit Fándly and Gabriella Novak, Flat Octopus, Stockholm, 2020
Performance, Superlocal 2020, Supermarket – Stockholm Independent Art Fair, 2020
Show with Simon Hjortek, Glasgalleriet, Ludvika, (Sweden), 2020
Performance ’Earth ritual’ with NKK, The Art Market, Mossutställningar, Stockholm, 2019
Performance ’Personal Space 3’, workshop by Shiva Anoushirvani, Pals Performance Art, Links, Fylkingen, Stockholm, 2019
Performance ’Kungörelse’ with NKK, Moderna museet, Stockholm, 2018
Performance ‘Personal Space 2’, 7th Contexts International Festival of Ephemeral Art, Sokolowsko, (Poland), 2017
Group Show, Workshop, Part of exhibition by Maja Bekan, Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, (Poland), 2017
Running a performance group ‘Personal Space’ with Mariusz Andrzejczyk, 2015 – 2019
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ASSISTANT
Cecilia Edefalk, 2020
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GRANTS
IAPSIS, Konstnärsnämnden, (The Swedish Arts Grants Committee), 2019
Kungliga Konstakademien, (The Swedish Royal Academy of Art), 2020
Stiftelsen Petersenska Hemmet, 2020
Carl Erik Levins Stiftelse, 2020
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