words//carolyn hedlund

Martynka Wawrzyniak has recently shown her series Ketchup and Kids in NYC at Envoy Enterprises, which specializes in 24-hour exhibitions. Wawrzyniak works mostly with portraits of children and exposes their vulnerability, as well as the idea of childhood vs. adulthood. She also focuses on ideas of using appropriated images in her artwork and uses both photography and video to project her message. In this interview, Wawrzyniak answers questions about her inspirations and even her own childhood, and how they affect the art she is making today.

Do you see yourself as a portrait photographer? Or does your work go beyond portraiture?

My work is conceptual. As a photographer I am primarily interested in portraiture. However, since my last show Ketchup, I have an increasing interest in expressing myself in mediums that span beyond photography.

Recently you’ve shown at the New York Gallery Envoy Enterprises, which showcases their artists in 24-hour art shows. Do you feel there are benefits to having your art viewed this way?

Yes, there are definitely benefits to having a 24-hour show, as it allows you to think on impulse and experiment with things you have not done before. When I was asked to have a second show, scheduled one month after the first one, I had to think outside of the box and do something entirely different. This process was very liberating—helping me come to the realization that I want and can do so much more than just photography!

In your series Kids, the children in the portraits appear to be anxious adults. Was there a sort of psychological atmosphere you were trying to achieve?

Yes, in this series I wanted to portray the troubled, anxious adult within the face of the seemingly carefree, innocent child. The portraits were a look into to the future of the kids’ faces, showing the adult they will one day become.

Was there reasoning behind you choosing appropriated images from Google for your series Ketchup, even those as a photographer you could’ve easily recreated these images yourself?

As I said above, my work is conceptual. It was not necessary for me to photograph these images myself. Appropriating the images from family snapshots found online also added an extra layer of sarcasm—further commenting on American society.

Did the move from Poland to New Zealand in your childhood and then eventually to the United States affect or influence the issues of childhood vs. adulthood that you touch on in your series Kids?

I had a rather confusing childhood: first my father left when I was six, then came the culture shock of moving from communist Poland to sunny New Zealand.  I think all of this made me grow up very fast. The Kids series is definitely a subconscious projection of my own anxious childhood, the kids’ faces being self-portraits.

Are there any photographers that were important to your artistic development, or that continue to inspire you today?

I draw inspiration from many artists, photographers and filmmakers; to name a few off the top of my head: Paul McCarthy, Marcel Duchamp, Larry Clark, Helmut Newton, Sally Mann, Juergen Teller, the directors Michael Hanneke, Lukas Modysson, David Lynch…

For a few of your series, you include a video along with the photographic images; do you believe that the combination of the two creates an understanding of your work that is important?

Yes, definitely. Video has a lot more depth than a still image. In my Ketchup show, the video/installation piece was the guts of the show. The images were secondary.

In your series Rooms, you depict children and adolescents in one of their most personal yet vulnerable settings: their bedroom. Why did you believe it was important to showcase these children and teenagers in this setting?

A kid’s bedroom is the temple of their formulating identity, hence the perfect place to capture them. Showing their bedrooms is also important to me, as this series is an anthropological study of the youth of this decade.

I am also working on a series of “New York Mothers and Daughters” portraits, documenting bohemian, artist type, primarily downtown families, specifically unique to New York City.

It’s hard to ignore that the images from Ketchup resemble children’s faces drenched in blood. Did you recognize the obvious gory connotations and do they contribute to what you are trying to say in this series?

Yes, that was precisely the intention. I wanted them to look like flesh eating zombies! The Ketchup show was very rich in meaning; it could be interpreted in many different ways. It was a commentary on America, American kids, consumerism, war, male aggression, chauvinism… and in the video, by standing blindfolded completely submitting to a group of 10 year old boys with water guns filled with ketchup, I wanted to exercise a reversal of power between myself—the adult—and a group of children.

I’m assuming you are familiar with Larry Clark’s 1995 film Kids, which focuses on many of the same issues that you do in your series, forced adulthood and lack of childhood innocence. Was there any sort of correlation between your work and the film?

I love Larry Clark and his photographs and films, but never consciously connected my work to his.

Are you working on anything new, and if so does it include working with children?

I am currently working on a project that has nothing to do with children.

It is a collaboration between myself and three other Eastern European, female photographers. The nature of the work is erotic and very different to anything I have ever done before.

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To see all of Martynka’s recent series, complete with video clips, and to keep up-to-date with her work, visit her personal website here.