Katarzyna Gajewska

She graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts as a Master of Fine Arts in March 2005 and was awarded a Ministry of Culture Scholarship. The recipient of four residencies at Cill Rialaig , Co Kerry, Ireland. She exhibited in the Origin Gallery, Dublin, then in Co Waterford, Co. Cork, Co. Wicklow, Co. Mayo and Galway, Ireland also in England, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, and Scotland. She is represented by Irish galleries nationally and she exhibits both nationally and internationally.


Statement

“Creating canvases laden with emotion and personal feelings is my necessity, obsession and addiction, never insatiable appetite. Believing in instinct over reason, I am starting over with every painting. The relation between value of colour and texture is my formula for expressing my vision. The effect of the feeling’s complexity is doubled by the works chaotic texture. Trying to contour human silhouette in bold structure on the surface, I am exploring the physical expression of the theme. The paintings give direct attention to their own physicality and because of that, the human form emanates with psychological structure, driving to insubstantial. Colour and texture are symbols.”

My painting process is something between my dreams and documentation. My art is situated in the middle – not in the realistic and not in the abstract, in popular meaning. I am looking for human simplicity and complexity in the same way. I am trying to catch the casual feelings, naked and defenceless in their realism, and then with understanding and patience I start to build portraits. My portraits are like multilayered cocoons, profoundly intimate, sexual or innocent. Psychological topography; still glances, crucial in their expression are uncovered in layers of my paint. Bold, rich and dramatic faces are like language; pulsing and inspiring. My portraits are my form of communication. For me no subject is sacred. The role of provocative feelings, persuasion, as well as the human impulse to beautify compels my works of art.

I don’t use any tools besides my hands – to be closer. I could say that my art is a first hand emotion – and that’s why I am painting only with my hands. It allows me to make close ups much deeper than they really are. I love using extreme zooming in – in life and in my paintings. My inspirations are deeply rooted in myself. I’m trying to search for inspiration every day: To reach for the deep feelings hidden below the surface of appearances, to pull them out from behind the window pane. It is a permanent record of fleeting sensations. This release from naturalism is a real struggle between the forces of creation and destruction.

Irvin Welsh; “Katarzyna's paintings are haunting and emotional, all the more visceral due to her methods of painting. The fact that she uses her hands gives the paintings an amazingly powerful primitive feel. The figures feel as if they are emerging or disappearing. They occupy a peripheral world like ghosts and this gives them a stunning intensity and power"