Saligia

Pride

Icarus is so close, just an arm’s length away. He proudly flew towards the sun, but his pride was considered hubris, and he was punished with a plunge into the cold sea, a tragic end. Hope springs eternal, however, and the coast is almost there... Can we hold out a hand and save the daredevil?

Greed

A bird tangled in oceanic waste, its wings stuck together with thick black oil — this is a commentary on the subject of the greed of oil companies and the ecological disasters associated with it. Hundreds, thousands of birds and fish immobilised and poisoned with the sticky liquid. We know these images from news reports.

Under the wings of a wounded mother, an egg survives, still whole, still alive. 

Perhaps there is hope?

Lust

This is a reference to various fetishes, as balloons aren’t just balloons, and there are unspoken symbols and titillations hidden behind specific objects.

The still life is enclosed in the stone frames of a window, which are a boundary both physical and symbolic. There are droplets of a liquid on the windowsill — yes, there are sexual undertones here, the sky in the background is in flames. Add to that juicy grapes and the forbidden fruit. Will the fetishes remain safely tucked away, or will they explode like the dangerous fire in the sky?

Envy

Even the fastest dog still envies the animal that’s faster, in this case, Calypte anna, Anna’s hummingbird. It is a seemingly pretty and friendly scene: the careless, trusting bird has flown close to the dog, perhaps too close...

It would take a second for the dog to jump and eat the bird whole. Will it do so out of envy?

Gluttony

The excess is clear: the lobster and the peacock are its obvious symbols. Medyńska consciously chose the peacock because this bird looks expensive and luxurious, but it doesn’t know anything about it, it has no control of the significance we assign to it. It’s just that its feathers are like jewellery to us. She purposefully didn’t paint contemporary possessions, things created by humans, which commonly represent wealth. The peacock, in its beauty and splendour, plays the role of a jewel for us, and it cannot escape the symbolism. We are the ones who define it. Humans decide what is precious, what defines material status.

Wrath

Here, a stone wall holds the elements in a rigid frame, under control. We know the symbolic red of the curtain from paintings by Caravaggio or Gerrit Dou. The icon of the Madonna, or perhaps Jesus, appears like a phantom locked in and imprisoned under a glass cover. The icon is purposefully left undefined to show that in our culture, we recognise it straight away and identify it with religion. A light shines through the glass, most likely a candle. Time will tell whether the Saviour will lighten our sky, or whether, abandoned and alone, we will fall into the abyss of complete darkness.

This is an attempt to express the need to keep to a religion, which lets one control the repressed rage boiling within them. We know fanatics who begin their day with reading the Bible, clenching the rosary in their hands, and so on, but roiling underneath that are rage, anger, resentment and hatred, and if their prayers are not answered, the need to seek revenge erupts. A religious oxymoron. When the mask of devotion falls, the monsters wake up. We need only remember the film Carrie, based on Stephen King’s novel (we love to hate the crazy mother in it). Is religion the path to salvation from horror?

Sloth

Barren soil, a dry tree. The last bird has flown away, abandoning the broken egg from which nothing, no one will hatch any more. The end of the world is nigh.

Yes, we know about the threats, we see the destruction around us, real changes in the environment, we have the knowledge about how we, ordinary people, can change something with our actions. But the castastrophic knowledge and fears have to compete with our own comfort.

Our petty laziness will be the death of us.