Malgorzata Mirga-Tas, Seville, Spain (2023)

These “little chapels” (as they were called in the captions) by Polish-Romani artist Malgorzata Mirga-Tas immediately caught my attention. In essence, they are triptychs masquerading as devotional curio cabinets showcasing vignettes that tell family stories and pay homage to her people: in this case, her grandmother, great grandmother and aunt. Using bits of fabric, paper and photography she creates situational collage, or deeply personal reminders of people, places and things that the artist wanted to be made public.

They reminded me of the many triptychs of early Western European art, often depicting the Virgen and death of Christ. True to the femmage spirit(1) the author created these works to pay homage and serve as acknowledgements of the craft and art of her often overlooked culture.

(1) The curator of this show noted these three paneled works were reminiscent of femmage, a term coined by the American artist Miriam Schapiro which combines painting, textiles, and paper into collages. I was unfamiliar with the term, but the writer of the caption notes that these pieces serve as artistic examples that examine the long standing tension between the multiple lives most women live: the personal vs. the public, professional vs. craft. Schapiro was also interested in elevating what was previously deemed “craft” into the realm of fine art.