I created a video/slideshow to present my art from the last two years. Paintings, collages, installations, small sculptures all created in Devon, in Dunchideock. And of course lots of nature, black swans, trees, a cat and nice music.

More on Kasia in the Countryside

Since settling in Dunchideock, I have started to use in my paintings/collages/installations more and more attributes from the garden.

My studio is situated in the epicentre of the garden, in a certain way that is. It is in the middle of the gardens ‘natural resources” and flora, as well being centred in the macro and micro dimensional sense. Among the trees, bushes, and flowers there are also a huge variety of insects, birds and other animals, both alive and dead. The nearness and the intimacy with the nature has an undeniable affect on my imagination and it so happened that my new born paintings are full of leaves, styles, petals, filaments, fruits, and small stems from trees, bushes, flowers and weeds; but also some parts of dead and alive insects and birds. In some of my old abstract paintings I have already used couscous, rice, diverse seeds, grasses and bay leaves. But it was only incidental and my imagination was limited by the ingredients I had in my kitchen and on my balcony. In Dunchideock, in the garden of Lyalls Cottage I have unbounded forms, colours, pigments, consistencies, structures and odours; the last aspect is only significant for me not for the paintings I am afraid.

More on Barb – the Blueberry Cat

I can’t remember who said that paintings should tell stories not only present them, maybe I imagined it. Maybe it referred to films and not to art, but what actually determines whether or not a painting tells a story and not only presents it? Perhaps it is the behaviour of creatures, colours, a smile on somebody’s face, a group of people arguing about something, children playing in the garden, insinuations, an absent gaze, or even musings. Is it possible, really possible to see the story? Is it really the artist who tells the story?  Isn’t it true that the artist presents the story and the receiver creates, interprets and concocts the past and the future of the given picture/story?

More on "The true story of the Cat, the Tree and the Bird"