Texts

Pause_ _ _ notes from the shoebox

I have a special shoebox in my studio where I keep small but not always quick works I am creating to relax, unwind, and make notes on concepts when more complex pieces at a time are impossible to finish. This is my pause time after too much tension in the process which allows me to foster mental engagement in the visual arts practice. The continuity of creative thinking makes a condition to grow as an artist. Gradually, these records have become 'a thing' themselves forming a body of work I would like to further develop.

The themes are influenced by surrounding me landscape in Co. Kildare, Ireland, which I admire having long walks. I feel immense connection to nature which I transcribe into visual impressions possible to read also as a journal of varied moods.

ME < MATERNITY project – series of feminine cocoons

When I was a child, all around was magical and undefined. Women of my childhood were always busy with crafty works, especially a grandma who was a tailor. She passed her skills to 3 daughters, so I am used to having scraps of materials popped in corners of a house, also colourful threads and buttons laying everywhere. Women in my family came easily from stirring meal to sewing, knitting, embroidering, composing flowers and so on. The work was left at their fingertips, waiting to go on with it. So is my art nowadays.

This body of work was created in a span of 8 years during winter stormy nights, which are very common in the area where I dwell. I had young children at that time. I felt enormous solitude because of living in a foreign country, taking any odd jobs to survive, in general being stuck in the house. This feeling shaded another - the need to care for and protect my family.

In the process of creation, I referred to old craftsmanship, in particular house-holding works carried by woman in the old days to feel safe and in the right place again.