Sonia Góral develops her practice by working with family archives, using childhood photographs taken by her father as a starting point for a process that is both artistic and therapeutic. By printing and painting over these images, she intervenes in their original narratives, disrupting the often aestheticized and one-sided vision of family memory.

 

These works emerge from a need to process the psychological weight of early experiences, including tension, suppressed emotions, and patterns inherited from the family home. Painting becomes a tool for both confrontation and understanding, enabling the reconfiguration of personal history. Góral’s approach reveals a notable emotional maturity, transforming private material into a broader reflection on identity and memory.

 

The exhibition, curated by Dorota Szulc as part of ShowOFF, is conceived as a spatial reconstruction of a domestic environment. It recalls fragments of childhood and stages a psychological return to formative moments. The installation combines small-format works derived from 10×15 photographs with selected pieces translated into larger scale, showing the development of the artist’s visual language.

 

The images refer to key rituals and situations such as christenings, first communions, and family gatherings. Although rooted in autobiography, they avoid linear narration. Góral’s works remain raw and deliberately non-narrative, functioning both as personal testimony and as social commentary. The painterly intervention becomes a site of reinterpretation where past and present collide, and the image ceases to be a fixed record, and becomes instead an unstable, living construct.

Author: Dorota Szulc

Sonia Góral (b. 1999) is a visual artist and graduate of the Jan Matejko Academy of Arts in Kraków. She explores the dialogue between photography and painting, using archival family photographs to investigate memory, identity, and cultural narratives. Her work addresses family, feminist reinterpretations of motherhood and sexuality, Polish identity, and human–animal relations within the Anthropocene. Selected exhibitions include Open Call OEAF—Best Diploma Works (2025), 47th Painting Biennale Bielska Jesień (2025), and OFF Bratislava (2023). In 2022, she co-founded Grupa Gruz, an art collective active in the KRAKERS and Open Eyes Art Festivals.