Home /Home/Elzbieta Zdunek

Elzbieta Zdunek

I speak two artistic languages; each expresses my different wants and needs. Photography is about capturing
the moment. I love portraying the moment of change, when suddenly nothing is as it was before. Therefore,
my photography language is usually shadow and reflection. Often, it is not about the object as such but about
how it is perceived. I am looking for the hidden surreal.


While photography allows me to catch the surrealism that already exists if we only look, collages are a tool to
tell my own story. And even more than once, I may reuse repeating elements many times and always come
with a new outcome, solution or turn of events. I like saying that collages are a bit like life; it is not always up to
us what happens, what kind of people or events we encounter, but we do have relative liberty in what role do
we allow them to play. Collages are a visual game of “what if”.


Mannequins represent us, both me, personally, and us, the society. Them being so eerily alive and dead at the
same time, I can address dark, uncomfortable, and sad topics, like fear, romanticization of death and suicide,
mental health, impossible standards. Mannequins allow to portray the issues with a human in mind, and at the
same time, how dehumanizing many concepts are.


I am fascinated with the topic of nature versus nurture and how we and our environment influence and impact
each other. I find incredible all the layers we have inside and how interconnected they are. I look at repeating
patterns in the history of humanity, how often what we are free to choose has been chosen for us beforehand,
at all our biases etc. I am really interested in education and other forms of impact and influence. They’re
extremely powerful tools; done well, they can change the world; done badly, they stifle and destroy. The
making and breaking, these are the juxtapositions I want to show.

Set of golden decorative elements. Isolated art deco frames and borders for design

Elzbieta “Ela” Zdunek is a photographer and collagist based in Helsinki, Finland. While art has always been
present in her life, it was the pandemic and the lockdown when collaging became her main form of expression.
Collaging is like life. What we encounter is not always of our choice, people, events, shapes; it is up to us to
decide how do we combine and interpret those elements. Collaging is taking and reclaiming agency, telling a
story instead of allowing it to be told.


Ela’s works focus on humanity and personality. The mannequins, so scarily human and devoid of humanity at
the same time, they’re portrayed in the moment of change, the moment when the reality happens and comes
to live. The style resembling movies from the silent era indicates how patterns and history repeat, and yet we
keep on being surprised with the local and global events. Ela likes to think that we are again in the roaring
twenties, equally tired, broken, and full of hope as hundred years ago.


Ela’s works has been printed in art magazines in the UK and exhibited in various galleries across USA and in
Europe. The achievement she is especially proud of is the Spring 2021 NYC ArtWalk. Art should interact with
public!


https://www.surrellart.com/
https://www.instagram.com/surrellart/