Magda Makolus is a participant of occupational therapy workshops held at the Polish Association for Persons with Metal Handicap in Lublin in Rogowskiego street. Little is known about her, hence the title of her exhibition: THE HIDDEN WORLD OF MAGDA M. Of all the activities available at the workshops, painting proved to be her real passion. Her works are invariably cheerful, full of warmth and colour. She draws with coloured pencils on paper in various formats, e.g. 40x30 or 50x40. She most often chooses to portray butterflies, ladybugs, fish, and flowers. Her drawings are predominantly done in sharp, definitive colours that do not mix and are securely enclosed with black contours. The artist does not title her works.
Drawing with Flowers
The drawing features 13 flowers of various sizes, red and orange, each with 5, often deformed and irregular petals, slightly leaning to one side. Each flower has a distinctly protruding centre in the same colour as the petals. By drawing the respective blossoms in varying sizes, the author added a dynamic quality to the image as well as a sense of spatial reference: the smaller flowers provide a backdrop for the larger ones. The background colour is in sharp contrast with the flowers, coloured in shades of green drawn into discernible surfaces/tiny fields. At times, the bottom of the drawing hints a few glimpses of blue from beneath the green.
Little Fish
The fish takes up an entire A-5 page. The background seems to radiate from or toward it in blue, dark blue, green and yellow stripes. Here and there, a black stripe is also visible.
The fish gives the impression of a stained glass window with its combination of flat/multi-coloured, geometric stains defined and delineated with black contours. And so, the head is large and grey, facing the right-hand side of the drawing. It has a smiling, human mouth and a large eye surrounded by eyelashes-thin lines, its iris is divided into mirroring triangular shapes on each side of a round dot in the centre, it is coloured with alternate strokes of blue and yellow pencil. The head touches a white fin reminiscent of a shirt collar. The body is a pattern of colourful horizontal stripes – blue/pink/light green/whitish/claret/orange and red. The tail and two equally spaced fins at the side follow the same colour pattern. With its wavy fringe tail, matching the size of the whole body, the fish gives the impression of movement. The exact proportions of the fish are: 1/5 for the head, 2/5 for the body/2/5 for the tail.
