For PROFILE, Maximillian William presents a suite of new paintings by London-based artist Magdalena Skupinska. Continuing her investigations into painting with plant materials, these works are among the first made by Skupinska on wood panels, which she began incorporating into her work on a recent residency in Japan.

Skupinska arrives at her shapes and materials intuitively. Colour acts as both medium and subject matter, and, while her forms are ostensibly abstract, they often seem to mirror details from natural forms. An irregular ovoid shape, described as a bowl, repeats throughout the paintings and appears to float, nodding to the sense of delicate harmony that Skupinska experiences within nature and in her use of it. The artist began working with natural materials almost a decade ago with the intention of adding scent to take her works beyond the purely visual. Since then, Skupinska’s motivations have evolved to create paintings that are free of the toxicity of conventional art supplies, and to pay homage to the rich colours present in nature.

Each plant has its own idiosyncratic properties, behaviours and characteristics, which Skupinska experiments extensively with in a fine balance between chance and control. This presentation for PROFILE marks the first time that she has used chamomile – a soothing plant used to combat anxiety and inflammation – and vanilla – the world’s second most expensive spice, whose labor-intensive production speaks to dark colonial legacies on Madagascar and Île de la Réunion. This is also Skupinska’s first use of dragon’s blood, a fantastically titled bright red resin obtained from specific plants and used since ancient times as varnish, medicine, incense, and pigment – as well as in medieval ritual magic and alchemy. For Skupinska, these historic uses and healing properties are symbolically integral to her paintings. While humans have drawn from these plants for millennia, Skupinska’s desire is to provide space for the plant to meet the viewer. She notes: “Abstraction allows me to give space for the plant to vocalize itself.”