A series of oil-acrylic paintings on canvas
The Girl and the Machine
The painting series consists of several dozen oil-acrylic works of various dimensions. The Girl and the Machine is an exploration of the relationship between femininity and technology, grounded in the context of cyberfeminism, futuristic visions, and dialogue with literary traditions. Through a synthesis of female figures and mechanical structures, I create a personal narrative about liberation, control, and human evolution in the age of technological transformation.
The cycle references selected themes from modern art, including the work of avant-garde artists of the 1920s and elements of futuristic poetry. I am fascinated by the phenomenon of today’s advanced technologies, which increasingly shape our everyday lives. Donna Haraway, a pioneer of cyberfeminism, in her 1985 essay The Cyborg Manifesto, asserted that we can neither escape technology nor surrender to naive euphoria. Instead, we should, with optimism, joy, and creativity, look Medusa in the eye and invent entirely new ways of coexisting with the monster we have become ourselves. My paintings materialize Haraway’s cyborg metaphor, depicting female forms entangled with mechanical components resembling industrial machinery. Through painterly techniques, I process personal anxieties related to the development of human-made beings.
In contrast to the smooth, invisible technologies critiqued in AI discourse, the machinery depicted in these works refers to the industrial aesthetics of the 20th century, emphasizing materiality and bodily interaction. The protagonists of these paintings, though seemingly defenceless, dream of seizing the power of mechanical structures and entering symbiosis with technology. The mechanical elements that “grow into” the female bodies resemble prosthetics that do not compensate for absence but add strength — contemporary equivalents of the mythological attributes of goddesses.
I present a vision of a world in which artificial intelligence does not replicate old hierarchies but becomes a tool for building entirely new mythologies — where machines dream of matriarchies, and female bodies transform technology into an extension of their own power. I pose the question: what becomes of humanity if we replace the physical body with a virtual form?
The painting series comprises a set of oil-acrylic canvases of varied sizes. To visualize the complex and multifaceted nature of cutting-edge technology, I construct multi-part compositions that “escape” the confines of individual canvases. My intention is to draw the viewer into a game of tracing the expanding structure — through connection, disconnection, and the discovery of new combinatory possibilities. This gesture is not merely a formal experiment, but also a metaphor for a contemporary reality in which technology can no longer be contained within any frame.
Selected interviews and articles:
Ewa Doroszenko
is a Polish intermedia artist and Doctor of Fine Arts. She lives and works in Warsaw. Her artistic practice combines traditional media with contemporary digital technologies across painting, photography, video, installation, and audiovisual projects. Doroszenko’s work addresses critical contemporary themes, including the perception of natural landscapes filtered through digital culture, the fluidity of beauty standards shaped by social media, and the shifting boundaries between nature and technology.
A graduate of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, she is a recipient of scholarships from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland (2019, 2024), the European Union NextGenerationEU programme (2024, 2025), and the City of Toruń in the field of culture (2011, 2013). She has won numerous international competitions, including Preview – Fait Gallery Brno (2016), Debuts 2018 – doc! photo magazine, and Debut 2018 – Lithuanian Photographers Association. She has also been a finalist in many international events, including the Noorderlicht International Photo Festival (2021), Kranj Foto Fest (2021), International Festival of Photography FIF BH Brazil (2020), Athens Digital Arts Festival (2020), GENERATE! Festival for Electronic Arts (2019), Der Greif & the World Photography Organisation Open Call (2018), and FILE Electronic Language International Festival in São Paulo (2015).
Participant of many Artist-in-Residence programs, including Atelierhaus Salzamt Linz in Austria, The Island – Resignified Lefkada in Greece, Re_Act contemporary art laboratory Terceira Island in Portugal, Petrohradska Kolektiv Prague in Czech Republic, Kunstnarhuset Messen Ålvik in Norway, Del Bianco Fondazione in Italy, Klaipeda Culture Communication Center in Lithuania, AAVC Hangar Barcelona in Spain. She has presented her works in many exhibitions, including Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Kasia Michalski Gallery in Warsaw, Center for Contemporary Art in Torun, Vilnius Photography Gallery, MAH – Museum of Angra do Heroismo, Fait Gallery in Brno, Propaganda Gallery in Warsaw, Pragovka Gallery in Prague, Exgirlfriend Gallery in Berlin, Polish Institute in Düsseldorf, Witold Lutosławski National Forum of Music in Wroclaw, Foto Forum in Bolzano.
Ewa Doroszenko’s works can be found in many art collections, including the collections of the Centre for Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Toruń, the Raffles Europejski Hotel in Warsaw, the Zachęta Lower Silesian Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Wrocław, and the Krupa Art Foundation in Wrocław.
Complete biography:
https://ewa-doroszenko.com/bio
