Blueberryland is full of unpredictable and unexpected phenomena.

Just when Blueberryer and Blueberryess wanted to go for a nice, evening walk suddenly out of the blue a golden and blue hole opened its mouth and both of them were taken into a new adventure. Maybe they could even wake up in a new Universe? Can they survive inside the blueberry hole? Is there a way to escape from it? Is the blueberry hole less dangerous than an ordinary black hole? Can Blueberryer rescue his Blueberryess without his Golden bike?

The adventure in the Blueberry Hole from the Series Blueberryland #2/n.

Blueberryland #2/n - detail

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

The complexity of the connectivity between these cells is mind-boggling. Each neuron can make contact with thousands or even tens of thousands of others, via tiny structures called synapses. Our brains form a million new connections every second of our lives. The pattern and strength of the connections is constantly changing and no two brains are alike. And if you thought that your brain is highly organised, ordered, logical and it has everything under control you are wrong. You are wrong! In reality, your brain operates on the edge of chaos, very often.

(From New Scientist)

At least my brain does. I am a great example of it, par excellence! I was really glad when one day I found this article in New Scientist (01 April 2009) with the title “Our complex brains thrive on the edge of chaos”. My whole life I have had a chaotic mind: with millions of ideas, inconsistencies, weirdities; thousands of times a second; with several things happening simultaneously; never able to relax my brain; never able to stop my brain thinking (not even when asleep). Often I thought I am not normal, my brain is not normal. Until I read this: “CHAOTIC thinking is rarely a recipe for success, but evidence is emerging that operating at the edge of chaos may drive our brain's astonishing capabilities”
And this (from New Scientist too)

HAVE you ever experienced that eerie feeling of a thought popping into your head as if from nowhere, with no clue as to why you had that particular idea at that particular time? You may think that such fleeting thoughts, however random they seem, must be the product of predictable and rational processes. After all, the brain cannot be random, can it? Surely it processes information using ordered, logical operations, like a powerful computer? Actually, no. In reality, your brain operates on the edge of chaos. Though much of the time it runs in an orderly and stable way, every now and again it suddenly and unpredictably lurches into a blizzard of noise. Neuroscientists have long suspected as much. Only recently, however, have they come up with proof that brains work this way. (New Scientist; 29 June 2009 by David Robson)

Once I went to my GP and told her that I am sure that my brain is making noises, noises I can hear. She looked at me and asked if there was a history of mental diseases in my family and told me that I am mad because the brain doesn’t make noises and can’t make noises. She was just as stupid as a mediocre doctor can be, a person without imagination of course. But in the end I was right of course, here is the evidence. Brain 'Noise' increases With age like the wavy lines and snowy static that dance across old TV screens, your brain generates noise (07 July 2008, New Scientist). Isn’t it great, the best machine in the world, maybe only in our world, our small earthly world, is random and needs and makes and generates noises. Great!

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 weird stuff. The basis for the 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” 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.

In the night when I can't sleep

When I am wondering about homo imbibens after my 3 glass of champagne

My brain the day after - 90 cm x 90 cm

My brain series part II

This painting is of course inspired by the blueberries in the garden, the blueberry ice crème (yummy) , the blueberry hill and all the blueberries fantasy. The Blueberry eye is a fantastic giant eye within the reflection of one blueberry, clouds, lights, sky and some weird creatures.

Blueberry eye fantasy- acrylic on canvas by Kasia B.Turajczyk 90 cm x 90 cm

From Wiki:

Researchers have shown that blueberry anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, resveratrol, flavonols, and tannins inhibit mechanisms of cancer cell development and inflammation in vitro. Similar to red grape, some blueberry species contain in their skins significant levels of resveratrol, a phytochemical.
Although most studies below were conducted using the highbush cultivar of blueberries (V. corymbosum), content of polyphenol antioxidants and anthocyanins in lowbush (wild) blueberries (V. angustifolium) exceeds values found in high bush species.
At a 2007 symposium on berry health benefits were reports showing consumption of blueberries (and similar berry fruits including cranberries) may alleviate the cognitive decline occurring in Alzheimer's disease and other conditions of aging.
A chemical isolated from blueberry leaves can block replication of the hepatitis C virus and might help to delay disease spread in infected individuals (it's not a cure, though).