Kasia Turajczyk » Art

Press Release – Devon Open Studios 2010

Kasia — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:15:02 +0000

Artist in Exeter/Dunchideock to take part in Devon Open Studios

Kasia Turajczyk
Lyalls Cottage, Dunchideock, Exeter, EX6 7YD

http://gallery.kasiaturajczyk.com

Phone: 01392 833904

Established Dunchideock artist, Kasia Turajczyk will be inviting guests into her studio/local gallery to view her new work this year in the forthcoming county-wide arts event, Devon Open Studios.

It is the largest showcase for artists in the county and Kasia Turajczyk will be joining over 260 artists opening their doors for 16 days from 4th –19th of September. Kasia will be taking part for the first time and is looking forward to her contribution to the event held at her studio in the garden of Lyalls Cottage and her gallery within the cottage.

Kasia began painting as a child, and for her becoming a successful artist is the realization of a life-long passion. She has lived in several countries with different political systems; diverse cultures, different languages, peoples, and landscapes and that fact has had a big influence on her development and growth as an artist and as a person.

Kasia works in diverse fields of art: paintings, installations, collages, fantasy art and new media. When you visit her studio you will be able to see examples of such work, together with recent abstract and modern figurative collages with a hint of surrealism, inspired by the nature of Devon. Nature is also a source of raw materials for Kasia's art, which enables her to achieve some very interesting structural effects.

She will also be showing some new installations entitled Personalities, created from old CD’s, acrylics and recycled materials (weather permitting in the open air of the garden). Kasia will also be inviting her visitors to take part in the process of producing an installation. She will be providing such an environment during the Open Studio weeks to make it possible for visitors to work together with her, and to have the opportunity to talk to her directly about the creative process.

Kasia Turajczyk is looking forward to the show and hopes that Devon Open Studios will help raise her profile. In 2009 over 30,000 visits were recorded, an almost two fold increase from the year before. Free to the public, the event provides a unique chance to see a wide variety of new work.

Devon Open Studios produces a comprehensive guide to help visitors plan their own art trail and combine browsing art with enjoyment of the county’s fantastic scenery. Free copies of the guide are now available at tourist information centres, libraries, galleries, and hotels. The most prominent place in Dunchideock where the guide will be available is the well known Lord Haldon Hotel (10 minutes walk from Kasia Turajczyk’s studio -http://www.lordhaldonhotel.co.uk).

The Blueberrry Fantasy - acrylics on canvas

High culture, mice and art – From the Series Personalities.

Kasia — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:24:22 +0000

My perception about the subject “mice and high culture” changed dramatically after the most recent event in my studio. I didn’t expect that a rodent would appreciate art! You see…..I was wrong. They do.
One of the agreements from the Four Agreements by Jose Ruiz says ‘do not make assumptions”. How true. I did not expect that mice would love art; my paintings particularly. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used so many tasty seeds? This painting (see the image) has been eaten by mice (I assume so, I hope that we have only mice here and no rats!). I assume that they were mice, I don’t expect bats or spiders would eat my painting, maybe I am wrong?
This is my new painting from the series 'The Personalities'. The title is ‘The Family’. Maybe I will bring some changes into it the next few days……I am not sure of it is ready or not.

The opening of my exhibition "From Fruit till Fantasy" 2009

Kasia — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:26:56 +0000

The Sensation of Walking by Kasia B. Turajczyk

Kasia — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:06:16 +0000

The Sensation of Walking

I learned to walk and I have walked
And I still walk…
Do I actually understand
How fortunate I am?
I can walk!
I can walk without help
And I walk using my own two legs
No prostheses, no walking stick
No artificial supports at all
Just my intention and my legs
My brain and my legs.
Usually I don’t think
About this fact, I don’t feel
This truth in such a way every day.
But it just so happens
That I am thinking about it now.
It seems so natural – walking.
Except in those moments when I see
David with his two prosthetic legs
And when I visit Ela
Her legs haven't moved for 15 years.
Then I feel how lucky I am.
I know I am independent
No diabetes and no MS
No accidents, no wars,
No natural disasters
I walk, I run, I jump, and
I trample on my left foot with my right foot
I move my body without begging for help
I can run away,
I can walk out whenever I wish.
Just a black swan phenomenon and
The unpredictability of luck.
It is the sensation
Of my fortunate perfection.
I am walking.
These are my feet.

More on The Sensation of Walking by Kasia B. Turajczyk

Preparation for my solo exhibtion at Galeria Forum, Lodz, Poland – 2009

Kasia — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:52:44 +0000

Preparation for my solo exhibtion at Galeria Forum, Lodz, Poland – September/ October – 2009
The name of my exhibition is "From Fruit till Fantasy"
In this video you will see my partner, my friends (at home with them), the gallery manager, the technical man of the gallery and pupils from one of the high school of Lodz (they were invited by the gallery manager to see my art).
The video was taken by Jim, the photos by me.

From the Series My Brain – when the demons are awakened (new version)

Kasia — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:42:35 +0000

Sometimes it happens that I resume a painting that was supposed to be finished. I try to improve it, change it, overpaint it or add new things to it. After a few sessions the painting changes and sometimes something totally new arises. Most of the time it is a positive change, but it has happened before that I totally ruin my painting. Fortunately it doesn’t happen often!

The painting “when the demons are awakened” from the series My Brain tortured me so intensively that I had to change it. For comparison purposes I am publishing both the old and the new versions. In the new version I worked with more tricky colours and I added more crazy materials. It is more frantic and wilder. I think that the words “frantic” and maybe even "furious” could describe this new painting. What else should you expect when the demons are awakened?

My Brain when the demons are awakened - new

My brain when the demons are awakened - old

My Brain – new abstract series – part II

Kasia — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:39:55 +0000

I have always been fascinated by the phenomenon of the human BRAIN, including my own brain…… to see the whole article please, visit "My brain – part I"

My brain, my chaotic brain inspired me to make these, I think really good, paintings. The series is called "My Brain" of course.

They are 7 paintings all together (until today at least). I am very proud to present them here. I have divided them into two posts. (My Brain part I and My Brain part II).

Six of them are highly abstract; only one of them is highly illustrative, although with some accents of weirdness. To make the collages I have used lots of stuff. The basis for te six abstract paintings are juices from beetroot, blueberry and a few mixed-leaves and beyond that in some of the paintings there are also acrylics.

In the painting ‘My Brain the Day After’ you can even find a piece of a real beetroot. In the painting “I Am Just OK” and "When the noises have gone away" I only used beetroot juice (first cooked together with some vinegar).“After the Third Glass of Champagne” has been made using blueberry juice (based on vinegar) and beetroot juice and some red vinegar.

The portrait of “Jim emptying his glass of wine and then making the world bleed” is painted with oil paints and finished with beetroot juice and nuggets of coco flakes.

When I am thinking about nice things - 51cm x 60cm

My brain when I see you suffering - 60cm x 51cm

My brain when I am just OK - 71cm x 61cm

My brain when the demons are awaken - 51cm x 76cm

New Painting – Moloch alias Metropolis

Kasia — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:03:03 +0000

A vision of a painting about cities, the gigantic and the smaller ones too, was on my mind for a long time. I adore big, bigger, gigantic cities – Moloch (the god, the machine – be free to make your own interpretation of the meaning of this word). I was born in a city of almost one million people; I have lived in a few capitals of the world. I have seen a lot of big cities. They have always fascinated me, those cities. When waiting at the bus stop or the tram stop, or just waiting for someone or something. When rambling for hours aimlessly and absorbing that “something” which determines "the uniqueness" of a particular city, I have listened to the anonymity and the emptiness of the hideous cacophony of the reverberation of the big body. I always wanted to observe the city from above, high above the houses, the tower blocks, the skyscrapers, the Gothic cathedrals, the towers, the people. Watching the city from space, from an invisible area like a Boltzmann Brain observing the Earth. Feeling the city, becoming the brain of the city; a dream of mine – it could be an astonishing experience.

I think that the giant cities, like NYC, LA or Mexico City are an unhealthy phenomenon. They are more likely ill and degenerate bodies than healthy ones; but at the same time they are absolutely fascinating organisms. They are fascinating in the same way as a patient with an unknown but terminal disease. Everything is possible. Millions of potential viruses, germs, cancers, infections…. Is the immunological system strong enough to create antibodies to protect them from attacks by their own body tissues? Will the treatment be helpful or it will just damage the body more? Will the patient be saved by a miracle? There are no certain answers, only experimentation is possible.

Hereby I present my ‘City’ – my Metropolis. I love big cities but at the same time I don’t have a good feeling about them. My city is a mystic and mythological Moloch but also a modern one; different when seen from above, different when seen from below, different inside, different outside. There is little connection between the top and the bottom; there is little connection between the dark and the light. There is only one thing that really connects the top and the bottom – the loneliness. The one thing that is common for all species is the loneliness, it doesn’t matter if you are at the top or on the bottom, the loneliness is everywhere, omnipotent, especially in the cities. The big cities are a synonym for loneliness and nothing more.

While at the top of K2, we are also lonely but in a different way; the loneliness in nature is more ‘normal’, eventually we are a part of nature, too. It is more an emptiness in the Buddhist sense. This is something that we can try to understand, it is more cheerful than painful. The loneliness between the 10 million others, locked in a labyrinth of bewitched abnormalities, is cruel, absurd, unbearable, and paradoxical. The sense of our existence is determined by the sense of the senselessness of that existence. Vive la merde!

To make this painting I used the best quality acrylic paint, dried herbs, rice seeds and couscous seeds. Only three colours have been used: black, orange and vermilion.

Metropolis alias Moloch by Kasia B. Turajczyk

Metropolis – acrylic on canvas; 80cmx80cm

P.S. Mythologization and mystification of the big cities are only the illusions and lies of poets, painters, photographers, movie directors, and me too.

Painting – my love.

Kasia — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:24:34 +0000

I paint because I have to paint.

And I love it.

Painting is:

a mystery,
a battle,
a love making,
a struggle
an adventure,
a journey,
a discovery,
a need,
it is my life.

Try to keep the rebel artist alive in you, no matter how attractive or exhausting the temptation.

Norman Mailer (Advertisement for Myself on the Way Out – 1959)

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.