Kasia Turajczyk » artist

Contemporary Art in the Community #1/n

Kasia — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 22:33:09 +0000

“Contemporary Art in the Community” is a joint project between me Kasia Turajczyk and econnexus.org.

The idea of taking art to the community came from Jim (my partner). I think he was just bored with my constant monologue about contemporary art, or to be more accurate perhaps I should say modern contemporary art.

My monologue was about these issues:

How alienated modern contemporary art is from the image about art of the average man and woman in the street. The average person visiting a very contemporary art gallery or modern art centre at the present time doesn’t understand most of the presenting art works. She or he wants to understand the “art works”. Because they can’t understand it, explain it, find any sense in it, they think they don’t possess the academic knowledge about modern art, and they just don’t like it.
How alienated, exhausted and recessive art that is currently presented in contemporary art galleries, art shows and modern art museums. Actually, nobody understands contemporary art these days: not the art historicists, not the art curator, not even the people who are writing the articles in the art magazines or introductions in the books. Very often even the makers/the artists don’t understand them either. They just like it and make it up, because that is what others expect of them.
Art doesn’t exist anymore. Most of the 'Art' isn't art any more. Nothing is art and everything is art. Art is about personal and emotional engagement. You like it or you do not, you feel it or you do not feel it; it makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you angry, it makes you disgusted. It is OK! How few techniques and skills are possessed by the new generation of students graduating from the Art Colleges these days.
Most of the artists presented in museums are talking to themselves, and have an inner dialogue with their empty mind.
However Pablo Picasso said: “Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? .. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.” Art is about feeling….or should I say NON-ART is about sensation. Maybe we never should think about what an artist is trying to convey, just concentrate on what the piece means to you, how it makes you feel. After all it is your personal experience!

And so forth and so forth…..

One day, just a few hours before our trip to the ocean (body boarding) Jim came out with a idea about taking ART to ordinary people and discussing contemporary art and art in general. “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us” since September 29, 2011.

The primary aim of the project is to take contemporary art out of galleries and museums, to take it out of artist's studios, and to show it to all sorts of different people in a variety of environments and locations around South West England.

We would like to discover from the ordinary people of Devon and Cornwall, what kind of art they like and what they don’t like. What contemporary art means to them? Are they interested in art at all? Is there a place for art in their life, living room, kitchen, mind? Or maybe they are not interested in art at all? These are the sort of questions we are going to be asking people on our travels. Maybe we will ask you too!

The preview of Contemporary Art in the Community

Widemouth Bay, North Cornwall, South West England
Thursday 29th September 2011

In which Graham meets a being born in the nebula of the constellation of Orion for the very first time, and is moved by Mintaka's message for mankind.

The process of creating an acrylics painting on canvas

Kasia — Sun, 29 May 2011 14:51:43 +0000

Last year during the process of painting my Magnolia acrylics paintings I have been recorded myself. I made a short video document from the fragments I recorded. Every single artist has an own unique style of painting. Some love to paint when they are naked, some needs alcohol in their blood, while others prefer a good quality joint. I prefer listening to music and talking to myself. Dependent of the sort of art I create sometimes I sit, sometimes stay up, sometimes I run or walk around the work I create. Large abstract paintings or collages often lie on the floor or on the grass in the garden and I run as a crazy bull around them. From time to time I lie on the floor or kneel down.

Here in this short video I am just sitting in the chair in my summer studio, the canvas is in the easel and I behave very normal and conventional. Sometimes I am normal.

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

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.