Kasia Turajczyk » Fine Art

The adventure with an Ocean Monster and a Blueberry Angel.

Kasia — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:21:46 +0000

Blueberryer and Blueberryess have found themselves in a tangled situation again.

Against all advice, Blueberryess jumped into the ocean because she wanted to know what she could find deep down in the black water. After that Blueberryer as a true gentlemen had no other option than to take a deep breath and jump into the ocean too. He did take the jump on his bike though. Of course he had a choice. To forget his Blueberryess and go for a wonderful bike ride in the “magnifique” Blueberry valley, sipping slowly the elegant Blueberry Cocktail at the top of the Blueberry Hill and enjoying the marvellous view over Blueberry Land. But as a victim of his own conception of his greatness, he had no other option than to jump into the black waters of that ocean. Or maybe it was true love?

This time only a miracle could help them. Blueberryess was swept swiftly into the Ocean Monster’s maw, and Bluberryer following her on his bike did almost the same. Suddenly out of the nothingness a Blueberry Angel appeared close to the monster. Would he be able to rescue the two reckless Blueberries?

The adventure with an Ocean Monster and a Blueberry Angel

From the Series Blueberry Land

Kasia Turajczyk at Red Dot Miami – December,1-5 2011

Kasia — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 13:34:06 +0000

The Red Dot Art Fair once again takes place at the Wynwood Art District in Miami, from December 1 to 5. Red Dot Miami is conveniently located in a prime spot for art fairs, while taking place during Miami’s art fair season. Some neighbors would include Art Miami, Scope Miami, and Art Asia. Red Dot Miami also runs concurrently with Art Basel Miami Beach.

And I will be there represented by Artisan Direct Ltd. 6 of my paintings from the Return of Peter Pan Series will be to admire. I am not humble, but I am really love this series. The paintings are cheerful, mysterious, some of them surreal, some of them funny all of them really beautiful. I hope if you are living in Florida or close to Miami you will go and see my paintings. I would love it.

A selection of paintings from Return of Peter Pan Series

Red Dot Miami covers the entire spectrum of artists, including emerging, mid-career, and established artists. This year’s show involves nearly 45 galleries from all across the globe, specializing in both modern and contemporary art. Works include just about every medium in contemporary practice: painting photography, sculpture, and works on paper. There is also a special section devoted to the debut of specific film and photography projects. Additionally another newly developed section is reserved for books. This area is for publishing houses showing editioned publications and book arts. Red Dot Miami aims to promote this medium and bring recognition to independent publishers.

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.

Gravity's Harlequin from Peter Pan Series

Kasia — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 22:03:25 +0000

In this new work from the Peter Pan Series I wanted to capture a movement. I liked the idea of the clown in motion. I have already painted him motionless, so this time I wanted to paint him in action. There is a certain uncertain power which is pulling my little harlequin- clown in one direction. However when you look very close and you pay the attention to the body of the harlequin you can discover an inclination to go in the opposite direction. And there is also Gravity, the natural phenomenon by which the body of my little friend attracts with a force proportional to his mass. Instead of a force it could of course be space-time curvature instead. An interesting idea for a new painting.

Gravity's Harlequin - acrylics on canvas; € 1.450

Hell, Purgatory and Heaven – an abstract concept.

Kasia — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:24:47 +0000

So there we are between Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. The GREAT TRIO issue of the Church Fathers, theologians and artists, not only the religious ones ).

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.

Devon Open Studios 2011 – third day "Out of the blue".

Kasia — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 15:20:35 +0000

Yesterday completely out of the blue a German couple visited my studio. They had just followed the yellow signs, not knowing what would be at the end of them. They not only loved my paintings but even bought one. We talked about modern art, especially modern conceptual German art. She lives in Essen and he is from Wuppertal. I absolutely enjoyed my time spent with those two very interesting individuals who really were into modern conceptual art.

She loves my weird stuff, like My Brain

A conversation with my cosmos, 2010 from the Series My Brain

and all my collages but also my more representative work. They thought about buying my Tree.

The Decrepit limbs of Mr Elm

At one point we went to my Summer Studio (I only paint there between late Spring and middle Autumn). When he saw my Blueberry Biker he decided to buy it. So my lovely Blueberry Biker has left me. Now I have to paint his next adventure and his beautiful lover.

In the late afternoon I had another visitor, a lovely lady who visited me a year before.

The third day of Devon Open Studios 2011 wasn't so bad after all!

Blueberry Biker on his way to his lover hidden in a golden cage.

Science, video and the Boltzmann Paradox

Kasia — Wed, 25 May 2011 11:20:17 +0000

On May, 11th 2011 I was invited by Tiverton Art Society to give a talk about art, video and the Boltzmann Paradox. The society has more than 200 members and is a very active one. Tiverton is an ancient borough and market town in the county of Devon, and the major town in the Mid Devon. It was a real pleasure to be there and to talk to the audience about quantum physics, my own art and art in general, and to present some of my videos. I even read one of my poems, the one about a physicist of course, the Nobel prize winner Niels Bohr.

I had some concerns before the talk, associated with my accent and random blockages of my memory; especially as I am tired (actually I am in a state of chronic fatigue related to my ME condition). I also wanted to talk about quantum physics, thermodynamics and the Boltzmann Paradox in a language in which I still struggle to express myself in the way I want to. When I talk in English I switch my brain into think-in-English mode, which is the way to master a foreign language. But still too often I am sucked in by antimatter, which tries to destroy my brain, confuse my memory and makes it impossible to have an intellectual, sophisticated chat. I find myself missing words, idioms, sayings, humorous expressions, knowledge of complicated grammatical structures. It is a matter of exercises, persistency and strong will, I know that. I am too old and I am lazy, I guess. J) However, I think everything came out successfully. The audience reaction was lively, and I thought they showed a real enthusiasm. I was talking about myself, my art, my videos, and physics and Boltzmann Creatures of course. I brought two big abstract paintings and a few new ones from the “Peter Pan” series. I was myself, spontaneous and a ‘little crazy’ as usual.

The Brits in general are very nice and polite people. Think about it for a moment; all the foreigners using and murdering their beautiful language and then the Brits listening and smiling and trying to understand the others. It is quite an achievement. They have my full admiration for their patience and calm. Definitely the majority of the audience preferred watching art videos and videos about my art than listening to my talk about quantum physics. (Maybe they were bored with my accent and my English!?) I wanted to talk more about thermodynamics and entropy but it was unanimously decided to watch all three videos about the Boltzmann Creatures, Betelgeuse and Mintaka instead of being educated about the laws of physics. Well, the perception of art proceeds in a completely different way than the understanding of the laws of physics. You have to force and to strain your grey cells to understand what quantum physics is all about. On the other hand it is surprising, to me at least, that we don’t try to understand the laws of physics more. As if the world we live in wasn’t extremely complicated. Just think about it for a second. Everything that surrounds us is related to one or another law of physics.

My talk was recorded. From the long video I chose the most interesting and amusing parts, from my point of view of course. Here is a short video part 1:

More on Science, video and the Boltzmann Paradox

She, the water and the night

Kasia — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 15:24:40 +0000

The painting “She, the water and the night” is painted on a very special canvas, one with a past. This canvas used to belong to my uncle, who was an amateur painter, and as far as I can remember, it was kept in his bedroom. Barely visible lines and a few coloured spots. An unfinished image from an unknown past.

The only thing that my uncle knew was that the previous owner was killed during World War II. My cousin Maciej Szewczyk, my uncle's son, was a professional painter. After his sudden death (he died young), his mother asked me if I would like to have the canvas. I discovered that Maciek had begun with a new work and didn’t finish it. And so the canvas travelled to Holland from Poland.

I didn’t need to wait long until I had an idea. I started to paint and I painted every day till I finished it. I wanted to make the painting as quickly as possible in order to break this strange cycle of starting but not finishing. I guess, I wasn’t prepared to die.

In memory of Maciek, I left two traces of the painting he began. In the lower left corner of the image you can find some mystical symbols; there is also some golden text on a blue background on the right side of the image.

To Maciek and the other unknown painter I dedicated the darkness of water and the dreaming-sleepy woman in the infinity of the night.

This is a large painting, 120×83 cm. It is oil on canvas.

She, silent and the night

"The inflamed eye of the beholder" from my surreal Eye Series.

Kasia — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:11:05 +0000

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.

Kasia — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:09:12 +0000

Interview by TV-Lolland, Denmark – 29 October 2010
I am having at the moment a group exhibition in Rødby, Denmark at Gallery Sigvardson. Till November, 14th.

It is a slightly weird place to present my art, and I still don't really know what I am doing there…but nevertheless you can see some of my paintings on their web site. http://www.sigvardson.com/exh_current.php

A short interview with Kasia Turajczyk about her art by Danish TV-Lolland