I don’t believe in a God (or Gods). I don’t believe in Hell, Purgatory or Heaven. I believe in physics, in the concept of eternal universes, in the perfection of our imperfect cosmos. I believe in the force of nature, a kind of intelligent living being, but without any sentiments or feelings. I was born into a Catholic family and up until the age of 8 I received a Catholic tutoring. Even so I didn’t believe in God consciously from the age of 12, but I am still fascinated by Catholic religion and especially by medieval art and culture. Medieval Art is one of my greatest passions. I can’t take my eyes off the marvellous, absolutely stunning Gothic Cathedrals, impressive gothic altarpieces, the beautiful icons, the fantastic gargoyles, and burlesque creatures, unorthodox and original creations all. Actually I love all the medieval visual art, the architecture and designs.

After this long interruption (I am an artist and as such I have to say something about me!) back to the big Trinity.

Pope John Paul II said: The essential characteristic of heaven, hell or purgatory is that they are states of being of a spirit (angel/demon) or human soul, rather than places, as commonly perceived and represented in human language.

This language of place is, according to John Paul II, inadequate to describe the realities involved, since it is tied to the temporal order in which this world and we ourselves exist. In this he is applying the philosophical categories used by the Church in her theology and saying what St. Thomas Aquinas said long before him.

Incorporeal things are not in place after a manner known and familiar to us, in which way we say that bodies are properly in place; but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us. [St. Thomas Aquinas,Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Q69, a1, reply 1]

This is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the truths of faith on this subject:

To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called hell (n. 1033).

How different are these views from the ideas of the medieval artists, sculptors, builders, decorators and craftsmen about Hell, Purgatory and Heaven.  They saw them as places. The medieval artists took delight in their subversive possibilities.

They created the most incredible churches, altarpieces, icons and paintings. Among those lots of them on the topic of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven.

The Buddhist concept of heaven and hell is entirely different from that in other religions. Buddhists do not accept that these places are eternal. It is unreasonable to condemn a man to eternal hell for his human weakness but quite reasonable to give him every chance to develop himself. From the Buddhist point of view, those who go to hell can work themselves upward by making use of the merit that they had acquired previously. There are no locks on the gates of hell. Hell is a temporary place and there is no reason for those beings to suffer there forever.

The Buddha's Teaching shows us that there are heavens and hells not only beyond this world, but in this very world itself. Thus the Buddhist conception of heaven and hell is very reasonable. For instance, the Buddha once said,

'When the average ignorant person makes an assertion to the effect that there is a Hell (patala) under the ocean he is making a statement which is false and without basis. The word 'Hell' is a term for painful sensations.'

The idea of one particular ready-made place or a place created by god as heaven and hell is not acceptable to the Buddhist concept.
I like this concept of Buddhism and also very much the concept of the Toltecs. We are creating in a metaphorical sense our own hell, purgatory and heaven in this world in our own lives.

I was playing with this idea: heaven is Death, purgatory is our temporary existence, and our birth is Hell!

I am absolutely aware about the fact that my abstract vision about Hell, Purgatory and Heaven is nothing compare to the imaginary art of Hans Memling, Hieronymus Bosh, Christobal Rojas etc, etc. It is my first approach to this topic. Just trying the colours and the structure.  I used my own technique to create this modern triptych on 3 separate canvasses.

Here are they:

Hell, Purgatory and Heaven - triptych by Kasia B.T.

I have created a new installation in the garden. It is about my insomnia. I got the inspiration from my own problems with sleeping and from a book I received from my 'art fan' in Brussels. If he is reading this post, he will be happy to know that I found the publication about Narcolepsy very educational and interesting.

Here is a photo of the installation:

Insomnia - Narcolepsy - Installation 2011 by Kasia B.T.

I am starting to think about my dream to make it as an artist as something very irrational, utopian and pathetic. Who needs art, who needs my art? If you have finished an art academy and if you don't "make it" within the next three years then you will never make it. The talent, ideas, originality, whatever it is of no importance after that. It is just the significance to being discovered by a very important art dealer and some luck. Then the marketing machine will start to work for you. Otherwise it will not.

Here are a few images of my work in progress:

Landscape in gold and blue

A bird in colours of Devon

The Gravitation of the Clown - painting in progress

We are born alone, we die alone together

If there is a way to free ourselves from suffering
We must use every moment to find it.
Only a fool wants to go on suffering.
Isn’t it sad to knowingly imbibe poison?

Seventh Dalai Lama

Yes, we suffer, at every moment and throughout the world. Every second, someone dies, every second, someone is murdered, tortured, beaten or maimed. Some people are separated from their loved ones. Others are abandoned, betrayed, expelled and rejected. Some are killed out of hatred, greed, ignorance, ambition, pride or envy. Parents lose their children, children lose their parents. Some die of hunger, cold, exhaustion; others are charred by fire, crushed by rocks, or swept away by the waters. This is a simple truth. These are not merely words, but a reality that is an intrinsic part of our daily lives: death and suffering. But we can’t turn away from it. That would be indifference or cowardice.

Poem by James Mercer Langston Hughes

I’m looking for a house
somewhere in this world
Where white shadows
Will not fall.
There is no such house
Dark brother
No such house
At all.

I presented this painting, together with the other two from the series Metropolis at my last solo exhibition (Lodz, Poland) and the reaction was very positive. However the paintings were taken as a very fatalistic vision of our life by the visitors.

Metropolis III - Nothing is certain but death and taxes' painting by Kasia B. Turajczyk; acrylics on canvas 90 cm x 90 cm

Going back to the taxes: from time to time I have to spend a lot of time with my accountant discussing my taxes. In a certain way accountancy is highly creative work. Nevertheless I hate it, I hate to do the administrative work and I don’t like to pay the taxes. And it is not that I don’t want to give my money away for a good reason or to charitable projects. I just don’t want to give my money to the government who will spend it and invest it in/for the salaries of the clerks, politicians, their weird expenses, their trips to more or less exotic places, idiotic ideas, insane wars and thousands of other preposterous fixations.

About Death – it is sure that we were born at some point and it is sure that we will die once. We know when we were born but we don’t know when we will pass away. And we don’t know how. But, this raises another question.  Is it actually important how we die? In what way, how long, distinguished or not, humane or not, in a total fear or in a peaceful reconciliation?
I think that all the issues about death are very unimportant at the end. quasi intellectual – quasi philosophical – part hypocritical debates.
Death is a split second when we go from a kind of material condition of entity into nonentity. For this act of nature isn’t important at all where, when and in what kind of situation we are dying. For sure nobody knows, what death actually is, what is after death, what one can expect on the other distinct side.

Maybe, a black hole?

And as Woody Allen says in one of his movies “Fear of death! It’s funny. I have that too. My dog has that too.”

P.S.1.  Medieval art is one of my favourite art periods, I just love it. I am fascinated by the fact that the people of the medieval period could have lived in such intimacy with death. Life was never-ending; death was a mere interruption of the continuum; after which the soul would await the Last Judgement

P.S.2.   Comment from David: “On a side note I think it's interesting how surrealist art can be open to different interpretations, each clearly dependant on the individuals own knowledge and experience… but then I guess that's the same with anything that's not accompanied by words. Either way, a very good picture! ”

If we don’t know the title for a painting and no description is given to us, then each of us will interpret it in different ways depending on the individual. Every version could be right, every reading could be wrong.

A painting is not a collection of images in the way that a film is, it is just one static frame. If you read the title first and then proceed to analyze and study the painting, you will be conditioned by what you’ve read along with your interpretation of the work. The knowledge about the title limits our imagination and guides what we receive from the work.

I experiment very often, particularly when I am visiting a museum or gallery to see new work. First I just look at the painting, I make my own vision, my own story about the painting and afterwards I look at the title and the description. Very often, especially in the case of modern art, I interpret the work in a way that does not reflect the intention of the artist.

My new painting tells a story, a true story, one that happened in the Garden of Lyalls Cottage.

Our neighbours have a cat. This cat is a hunter and a killer. They call him Tabby, which is obvious because he is a tabby cat; a real Mackerel tabby cat.  I like him very much, although he can be stubborn from time to time, especially when he needs attention. He visits me sometimes in my studio, jumps on the arm-chairs, looks at me for a while and then falls asleep and purrs.

In our garden grows a Smoketree which grows to about 5 metres high and has beautiful red/orange/purple leaves. The Cotinus Coggygria (Latin name) contrasts magnificently with all the greenery that surrounds it.

Once I found a bird close to the Smoketree, unfortunately he was dead. Only the beak, the eyes, something that originally could be called a head and some feathers were left as the rest has been eaten. It seemed to me that it was a black bird.

This inspired my new painting: “The true story of the cat, the tree and the bird”. The cat is a surreal giant cat, as ultimately he is the victor and dominates the story. The tree is only a blabbering witness to the events, and as for the bird… We should respect the bird with silence.

The true story of the Cat, the Tree and the Bird