Paulina Stasik (Polish, born in 1990) paints idealized female nudes as highly diverse characters that are always on the move. The situations in which the women are caught are intriguing and ambiguous, the setting in which they are depicted dramatic and theatrical. Stasik is interested in the body as a carrier of spiritual, sexual, and cultural energy, which she investigates by giving her figures an almost mythical aura of all things traditionally associated with women – such as fertility, desire, and sin. The artist paints her luminous oil paintings in a distinctive color palette, dominated by a repetitive use of blues, purples, pinks, and reds that she applies in many layers in a time-consuming process.

Skin in the Game (2023) shows three bodies rendered in Stasik’s characteristic colors, two of them being women and one reduced to a body’s skin, as the title suggests. The idiom to have ‘skin in the game’ means that there is something at stake for the person who is directly involved or affected, and that efforts need to be made to achieve the goal. The title insinuates that women have something to win or lose when coping with the patriarchy, which is still widely celebrated in most parts of the world. The draped skin on the arm of the central figure stands for shedding of expectations imposed on women since childhood. The woman in the center clearly goes through a transformation process – from child to adolescent to adult woman – while carrying the child’s skin as proof of her metamorphosis and gaining independency. Through rituals and symbols, Stasik gives her heroines the strength to change and to be in charge of themselves, while not hiding but exposing their feminine powers.