Biography / Chlepa
Introducing Klementyna Epa and Ania Chlebowska: illustrators, printmakers, and artists from Poland. They also work collectively under the pseudonym Chlepa.
Their primary focus of interest is responding to problems that contemporary society is facing by means of art – either with direct commentary in the form of illustrations or an answer in a more abstract form.
Klementyna’s previous works are mainly about an individual entangled in a disturbing socio-political context while at the same time drawing from her own experiences.
Ania’s former work deals with human-nature relations, the concept of landscape, and how climate change affects our well-being.
About the project
“Chlepa Codex” is a series of artists’ books in the form of boxes filled with abstract illustrative and typographic content and small 3D objects – reminiscent of reliquary containers full of artifacts.
Chlepa reject the informative role of writing, and instead convey their narrative with symbolic iconography and script, creating an abstract but consistent story with a timeline, continuity, and a set of characters.
This project is inspired both by relics of history such as mysterious manuscripts (Voynich Manuscript, Rohonc Codex) and works of surrealists and artistic avant-garde (e.g. Max Ernst’s and Iliazd’s „65 Maximiliana or the Illegal Practice of Astronomy”)
Both artists are fascinated with symbols and artists’ distinctive visual languages so they decided to broaden this idea with their combined aesthetics.
Photos: Christian Rückert
