Fight, Flight, Freeze, Friend

It was a windy day and I met them for a coffee. We ate meringues with fruits (they were good). She is glowing and speaking at breakneck speed about her new-found attitude. “It is actually amazing”, she says, “I feel a thousand times better, I can focus finally and I feel like it will all work out, no matter what”. “That is wonderful”, we reply, and we truly think so - it is a well-deserved break. “How did you do it?” “Well, I am nearing my thirties and I decided to just keep it cool, whatever comes will come. I don’t know, I think it is just a change of heart, quite simply, but it is working for me now. How about you?”. “Well”, she says, “I have been in a rut and unable to get out of bed. Been reading way too much and can’t deal with that, but I decided to come and see you. Took a shower and even got dressed just for you. Anyways, where is she?” “Oh, I don’t think she will make it here - I will call her once I reach home. I haven’t slept much lately and, from what I heard, she hasn’t either.” We haven’t seen each other in quite some time, so we talk for a few hours about things to be guessed and things we know. To celebrate we order a new coffee and some baked goods for takeaway. We say our goodbyes and I am the last one to walk out with two warm croissants in my bag. The wind is still strong and I hear ringing. “Hi! No, don’t worry, it’s cool. Sorry for the noise, how are you? Tell me all about it.” “Yeah, listen, I am feeling all of that wind. Bless the telephone! Do you have the time and power to talk?” Fight, flight, freeze and friend are types of an automatic, physiological bodily reaction that occur in response to a threat or perceived danger. The works in this exhibition are the result of observing different attitudes to life and its many twists and turns. It is a study of positions we take in the face of the inevitable challenges. This collection of different poses of bodies functions similarly to an album displaying the capabilities of athletes. The bodies of the painted subjects are metaphors that, while remaining open to a broader, political and historical interpretation, speak of precisely that: the type of position they are in. Beyond working on specific themes or ideas, Alicja Pakosz’s daily practice begins by systematically painting on small paper, in the standard A4 format. It is an intimate, diary-like process. The works included in Fight, Flight, Freeze, Friend, have a crumb-of-life quality, deriving directly from this day-to-day work between series, but they also touch on themes that the artist has worked on in the past: community, the sense of shared identity and the changing power dynamics in the social contract. Alicja Pakosz (1996, Tychy, Poland. Lives and works in Krakow) graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. She is currently a PhD Student at the Doctoral School of the Pedagogical University of Krakow. Recent solo exhibitions include: 2024 - ADA, Rome, IT. 2023 - Office Baroque, Antwerp, BE; Pani Domu, Poznań, PL; Galeria Raster, Warsaw, PL. 2022 - Gdańska Galeria Miejska, Gdańsk, PL. 2021 - Galeria Piana, Krakow, PL. Recent group exhibitions include: 2024 - Podium, Hong Kong, CN; Her Clique, Lisbon, PT. 2023 - Office Baroque, Antwerp, BE; KKKC & Krupa Art Foundation, Klaipeda, Lithuania; Galeria Raster, Warsaw, PL; Modulgalerie, Nuremberg, DE.