The process
Creating new worlds, creating new realities, allows me to get away from the face of the earth for at least a short while. It does not matter whether it is painting, singing or writing. Every moment spent away from the grey reality allows us to reset, to separate our minds from our weary bodies.
For me, drawing or painting is a form of meditation. It is practically the only time when my head is not buzzing, when it is not weighing down on my shoulders. Thoughts - if they appear - flow along a single path, meandering slowly, freely.
I watch every pebble along the way, touch the grass by the side of the road with my hand, admire the beauty of the trees growing up beside me. I watch the trotting beetles and lazy snails. I stop to look up at the sky and enjoy the immeasurable, boundless blue.
Although I am very rarely satisfied with the end result - remembering the process and picking up the crumbs of what I learned during the process makes me smile for a moment.
Sylwia
The works I am showing you today were painted/drawn in secondary school - art school. These are two works that were painted with the diploma in mind(as supporting works for the main diploma), but I rejected them because I wasn't entirely happy with them.
Funnily enough, the original diploma works have been placed in the school archives(I'm guessing they are long discarded) and the diploma photos(documentation) were lost on my burnt hard drive many years ago unfortunately. So I am left with the 'rejects' :D
I must admit that I find it difficult to look at these paintings. Not only because I would paint better now, but because they force my brain to travel to the past. And the sentiments bore and irritate me.
Nevertheless, there is quite an interesting story behind these particular works:)
The girl in the painting, Sylwia, lived next door to me in the boarding school. Very tall, red-haired, husky-like eyed, dressing like proper punk rock fan.. Very mischievous, unreformed fan of poetry and heavy music. I loved her more I can express. She was 3 years younger than me, but sometimes she behaved like a child, so I used to reprimand and scold her sometimes. So she started calling me 'Mum'.
It was my fourth and final year of secondary school. I was working intensively after hours on the drawing annex for my diploma(I had in mind Professor Aniszewski's words, if you want to read about him, see here so that I could get it out of the way and focus completely on my graduation.
I was in the middle of the 2nd portrait when the model who posed for us at school became seriously ill. When she had been out for 2 weeks - I decided to look for a model on my own. However, it turns out that very few people want to take off their clothes for little money :D Desperate - I started working on still lifes, which I hated, and I still do :D
I was sitting in my studio after hours, and then I hear loud footsteps on the stairs.
-Mom!!! - Sylvia called out.
-Here I am! First door on the left! - I shouted.
Sylwia rushed into the studio in a thin summer dress and army boots . Significantly - only the army boots were in place. I had never seen Sylwia in a dress, and what's important - I had never seen her in an outfit that was any other colour than black.
-I heard you needed a model!
She ran into the cavalet(a revolving table used for scultures or placing models on it) and started unzipping her dress.
-Crazy? What are you doing?
-You wanted to draw nudes, I remember!
-Why the hell are you wearing that dress then?
-I was looking for an excuse to wear it. - she shyly replied.
Rejected
I started with sketches of the figure, the so-called 'modello' - a small sketch of the figure, usually on A5/A4 format – just to establish proportions, and decide what pose I wanted to use on the final work.
I decided to use a dress. It couldn't go to waste after all! That evening I sketched the first work. And thanks to the fact that I turned it down - you can see it today (the one with the pink dress).
Sylwia posed for me not only in the studio, but also in the boarding house - I did a lot of sketches, portraits, fast sketches. I was looking for interesting poses. In total, I did 12 paintings, 13 if I could count the one I abandoned halfway through working on them.
The work on the red background - originally it was part of an appendix - but my professor and I rejected it 15 minutes before the thesis defence :D
Instead of 5 paintings - I showed the 3 best ones. I am grateful to him for helping me with this.
I called the series 'Squeezed'(or 'Pulled down' – it is truly hard to translate it to english), the idea was born with the 4th painting(the one with the red background). It was a projection of one of my irrational fears - claustrophobia. Each subsequent work pressed Sylvia into tighter and tighter frames. Anxiety was not the only leading thought here. Loneliness, lack of choice, sterotyping.
Ideas flowed as I painted and drew. Each figure is white, without a trace of paint - I wanted to show how fears take away our joy of existence, how they take away our colours.
I hope you don't judge me too harshly - I was about 17 years old when I made these paintings:) I have a few more works from my high school days, which I will share with you soon:)
As always,
Yours,
Strega Azure
hardboard with white acrylic base( dimensions: 100 x 70 cm).
I used 2B pencil, oil paints.
