The topsy-turfy garden of Lyalls Cottage by Kasia B. Turajczyk

My two new paintings, actually collages. I painted them in Dunchideock, in my studio in the Garden of Lyalls Cottage. I forgot it to present them to you.

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This painting/collage is one of the Lyalls Cottage Garden series. It is a weird one. I only used natural materials from my garden and kitchen + wax. I called it an 'ugly girl'; Involuntariiy I created a face, truly by accident. The nearness and the intimacy with nature has an undeniable effect on my imagination. The painting is full of petals, styles, filaments, leaves, seeds, small stems from weeds, dried flowers, small chillies, seeds and feathers.

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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.

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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?

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Since three months ago, we have lived in Dunchideock in Lyalls Cottage. Dunchideock is a small, old village, with the house itself dating from around the 15th century. But, the house as a house is only a house; walls, a ceiling, thatched roof, and a floor. The most important part of the property is the garden: a beautifully fabulous, magical and bewitching place. The garden and the house are surrounded by all kinds of nature including horses, rabbits, deer, pheasants, foxes, and veritable smorgasbords of birds which all emerge silently from the forest, hills, meadows and fields. The scent of life: the scent of a real, simple, rural life.
All the nature, the garden, the air, the colours and the music of Dunchideock are inspirations for my new paintings. I spent almost my whole life in big, bigger, and even the biggest cities. If I had been told, say, four years ago, that I would have loved to live in a small village, I would have proclaimed that the person was totally irrational…

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