Marlena Podolšak

b. 1976, Germany
Lives and works in Stuttgart (DE)

Marlena Podolšak transforms images from the past through her powerful self-taught painting practice into contemporary visual narratives marked by social critique and a subtle sense of irony. Moving between technically sophisticated retro aesthetics and meticulous detail, she creates works that are at once unsettling and emotionally resonant, telling stories while questioning how history is remembered and represented.

A recurring focus in Marlena’s work is the visual culture of the late twentieth century, particularly everyday technical and utilitarian objects from the decades preceding the turn of the millennium. In her paintings, these once-familiar devices reappear as charged visual motifs, carrying traces of memory and capable of evoking personal associations and emotional responses.

Through a slow and concentrated process, Marlena transforms familiar mass-produced objects into singular pictorial presences, shifting attention from their original function to their symbolic and psychological resonance. Her practice is also shaped by a critical awareness of the contemporary overproduction of images. While this constant visual flood can create a sense of restlessness, it also serves as an important source for her work.

Extracting forms from their original contexts, she recomposes them in carefully constructed spaces where unexpected associations emerge, sometimes recalling iconic images such as Edvard Munch’s The Scream in the expression of a retro Russian latex toy rabbit. If images once reflected on transience, Marlena suggests that today they themselves have become symbols of a contemporary form of hyper-vanitas.