Natalia Zagorska-Thomas Review
March 14, 2025Natalia Zagorska-Thomas’s works are delicately created Surrealist objects, which seem to meditate on themes of antiquity, repair, the fragility of nostalgia and the beauty of the every day. At least, that’s what I would say if I was writing her press release. The artist herself declined to explain and I did not see an artist’s statement, but the works moved me strongly.
Natalia Zagorska-Thomas artwork at Studio ExPurgamento. Image A Lazar.
Artwork at Studio ExPurgamento. Image A Lazar.
Artwork at Studio ExPurgamento. Image A Lazar.
The exhibition, held in a dedicated gallery space, ExPurgamento, in her charming Camden flat, consists mostly of lovely vintage objects found broken and then repaired or shown with jagged edges carefully scalloped into a deliberate form. They are mainly of a certain kind: crystal glasses, kid gloves, lace nightgowns, velvet evening bags, bone china and silver plated cutlery. These objects are slowly being lost from the world: while we do have new crystal glasses being made, they are never so fine as an Edwardian champagne coupé, nor are they skilfully hand engraved. New china dinner sets are available at John Lewis’s everywhere, but it’s nice to treasure old ones too. Even though there will unlikely be a matching set, especially from smaller makers.
Natalia Zagorska-Thomas – Tiny Dancers
Artwork at Studio ExPurgamento. Image A Lazar.
Natalia Zagorska-Thomas artwork at Studio ExPurgamento. Image A Lazar.
One theme is the dancing ballerinas from old musical jewellery boxes. You would open the lid when you go to put away your precious items and the ballerina would pop up and begin twirling to the sound of a gently twanging mechanical music. Freed of the box, Zagorska-Thomas’s dancers are oddly contorted. In “Domestic Goddess”, one tiny tragic tutu-clad nymph appears caged in a kitchen whisk while her tiara’d twin swims in a blender, in what might be a commentary on women’s requirement to be beautiful yet domestic, trapped in the kitchen. A little bit passé nowadays, perhaps. Are we still expected to whip up a cake with immaculate lipstick? In fact, the day of the opening when I came, the artist’s husband was in the kitchen devising cocktails while she flitted amongst the guests.
Another little dancer is part of a little tea table, with a snowy white tablecloth, floral plate and silver cutlery set next to a wine glass full of dark red drink, in which the lady, now bound by her elegant wrists, rises and falls perpetually due to a motor hidden beneath the plate.
A different theme concerns the apparent similarity of bullet casings and lipstick tubes, and they do, in fact, have a visual echo, being of a similar size and material. “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” concerns a lipstick bullet inserted into a bullet casing. Warpaint, maybe. There is also an old powder compact, with the now-empty mesh which used to contain the powder delicately embroidered with the melancholically trailing off phrase “You will live forev…” The mirror is cracked. Another is used to trap and display a white butterfly.
Bones and Shells and Yesterday’s Dinner
Natalia Zagorska-Thomas Artwork at Studio ExPurgamento. Image A Lazar.
Artwork at Studio ExPurgamento. Image A Lazar.
I deeply dislike the use of small creatures, bones and shells like this. A chicken bone is used as a small catapult, a hen’s eggshell covered in rubber, an intact fish skeleton tipped with something, and feathers sewn into more rubber. In a pretty glass display case the jawbone of a small animal, more chicken bones, feathers, etc, are added to glass tubing and medical looking bulbs. It is mostly the remains of someone’s dinner, stuff picked up on walks, but it makes me very queasy. As does, I suppose deliberately, the use of off-white latex – just balloons, but of course Matthew Barney and Eva Hesse loved their latex ad the effect was never meant to be anything less than discomfiting.
Natalia Zagorska-Thomas – Environmental Repairs
Artwork at Studio ExPurgamento. Image A Lazar.
Some objects which I like much more are the carefully repaired and embellished plastic bags. They are appliquéd with pieces of lace or sewn with little mother-of-pearl buttons, as if this trash should be treasured. A lone phrase from a children’s book where people come from another world to ours first encounter a plastic bag look at it wonderingly and stretch it between their fingers comes back to me out of nowhere: “We’ve nothing so fine as this”, they say.
“Fine” as in delicate, but also “fine” as in finery, something special. Every plastic bag should be treated as something special, and carefully repaired as if it were irreplaceable. A broken window is carefully stitched and darned. It is, of course, very difficult to stitch glass, if it is glass, it might be perspex. So there is some very precise technique going on here as well, with tiny holes being bored into the material first before the cotton is threaded through. But the principal is the same. Let us take care of things, even those that seemingly don’t matter.
Impenetrable Knitting
Artwork at Studio ExPurgamento. Image A Lazar.
Charming and funny is the chainmail knitting A whole set of underwear has been created, a bra from tea strainers, tights with one trailing leg, a vest with little pearly buttons and knickers edged in vintage lace. The skill is exquisite. The show is well-put together, excellently presented and though it makes me uncomfortable, that’s what art is for.
Natalia Zagorska-Thomas is at ExPurgamento in Camden until the end of January. Entry is free, opening hours are Saturday and Sunday, 11am-5pm or by appointment. I won’t publish the address but you can contact the artist to find out more.
