Kristin Landowski

Artist Statement 

Landowski’s work explores the space of dis-ease with disease and the manifestation in the body, while in search of illustrating an understanding of the unimaginable. My work addresses the raw experience both physical and emotional, allowing space for imperfection and comfortability, daring to be ugly, to refuse conventional beauty as a cure for female suffering. My work embraces the disease in a raw interpretation that avoids omitting personal illness narratives of people dealing or having dealt with breast cancer.

My figurative work is often misunderstood as being creepy, grotesque and simply put “female issues.” While these are often gross oversimplifications of the deeper meaning of the work, the participation it asks of the viewer, and call to action. The work is intentionally distressed, and the cracking serves many purposes, and is in no way a defect of construction. These figures are placeholders for those of us that have been through breast cancer, and/or know someone who has. One in eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. This is the current statistic. In the 1970s it was one in nine women, and it fueled the beginning of a national health campaign organized to increase awareness of the disease and raise funds for the cure. Since 1985, the month of October has been devoted to breast cancer awareness.

The year 2010 became the year of pink for my family: my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. I participated in my first Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, which was the event’s inaugural year where I lived in central Wisconsin. Pink ribbon culture fostered a sense of community with others going through the same experience. There was a feeling of hope that collectively we could work through this difficult time in our lives. We believed that by purchasing products with pink ribbons on their packages, indicating the companies’ support for the cause, research toward a cure would necessarily accelerate. These products were abundant, and we purchased them with abundance. At that time, I was unaware of how complicated the pink ribbon culture was, and how it was using the suffering of many as a way to benefit and profit. It is a highly problematic approach, and one that asks consumers to do their due diligence on how much of their spending actually fuels the crusade against breast cancer.

Through my mother’s diagnosis with breast cancer, I was able to witness, participate in, and question the influences companies using pink ribbons have on women with breast cancer and our society at large. It would be a mere decade later that I would embark on my journey with breast cancer, and future cancer prevention procedures. This lived experience has fueled my passion to bring awareness and shine the light on all aspects of cancer, and not shy away from the less than beautiful moments that are part of our journey when trying to fight to live, and beat cancer. 

 

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Stoicism: Detection and Infestation
Clay, Glaze, Stain
37”h x 17”w x 13”d inches
2026
$5000