Starting out as a sculptor during the 1950s, Pinińska-Bereś’s practice was the antithesis of the authoritarian environment she inhabited, dominated by men and a repressive communist government. Rather than be deterred by the challenges and adversity she faced as a woman artist, she instead found creative ways to channel her frustrations, producing hyper-feminine sculptures that demonstrated her ongoing preoccupation with the female body, sexuality, desire and surrealism.
Emancipating herself from the constraints of depending on male assistance to help produce heavy sculptures, Pinińska-Bereś adopted the use of lightweight materials in her work such as plywood, cotton wool and polyurethane foam. She also worked almost exclusively with the colour pink, which became distinctive to her practice, like a signature. The colour pink concisely encapsulated the artist’s defiance of the undemocratic and patriarchal political system which she lived under whilst simultaneously being a joyful symbol of freedom that also celebrated the feminine and the erotic.
Maria Pinińska-Bereś b. 1931, Poznan, Poland; d. 1999, Krakow, Poland.