Series "Memory" 2008

Series "Icing"

About series "Memory" 2008

Motifs: faces from old pictures, a wound, a scar, a crack,
Technique: mixed ( photosensitive emulsion on canvas, fragments of old clothes, acrylic).

Taken straight from family album those old photographs seem to be windows to the world, which no longer exists. The reality and vividness of those images creates an illusion of familiarity with the people seen on the pictures. Blurring of the images make the impression of their fragility. An attempt to touch, the temptation to enlarge the picture in order to get closer view ends with failure- the observer is left with a grey film grain. Yet an impression of vulnerability remains as well as openness with which the portrayed  reveal themselves. Being so fragile those people seem to be nude in a bizarre way. The illusion of life, natural pose, gesture, grimace heighten the sense of absurd , the idea of “somebody’s disappearance”.

I create photos by putting photosensitive emulsion on the fragments of old clothes- some of them belonged to people who are presented on the photographs. Paradoxically the clothes seem to be more durable and more concrete than the faces of its owners. Those faces wear away, disappear and blur and often some of them are difficult to discern because of the discolor and stains on the material. The clothes, sewn into paintings become simultaneously kind of a relic, an icon (according to Barthesian theory a picture is created from light and touch) as well as family memento in an oval frame. By attaching photograph with the canvas under the frame I cut the fabric up and use its natural folds creating rolls around sewn material.

My intention is to bring to mind the notion of wound, scare, crack and slit and at the same time an impression of decorative frame. In some parts the picture manifests itself with all sharpness, in other parts it disappears and blurs because it has been worn out and discolored. It is difficult to define whether the faces are just emerging rash on the material, an illusion or maybe disappearing, fading image...

About series "Icing".

Icing – colorful pictures, sweet, beautiful, pure and tasty…

They shine in bright colors and attract with an aesthetic drawing. Or maybe this joyfulness is just a mask? Could it be an illusion in printing tricolor? Do they lie … and lure? Body covered with icing- meat… Mouth- fetishes, breasts and stomachs- fetishes, marked with decay… Body torn up to pieces very often illegible, sometimes still quite distinct but always sliding into nonexistence.

What the title  icing stands for? Lacquer, idealization, oblivion? The release of the body from the burden of person’s designation…Dull sweetness which does not allow to talk about suffering. The change of subject into object, love into usage. Diaphragm behind which a tragedy is taking place.