THE HAND IS AN EXTENSION OF THE HEART - impressions about art

March 3rd, 2023

author: Katarzyna Nowocin-Kowalczyk (Catherine)

The Hand Is an Extension of The Heart - impressions about art with the cultural expert's eye

Text from the book: TIME OF CHANGES

Amazon

eBook

Late on a March evening, I pull up to the Vienna Woods Gallery in Los Angeles, located in a nice neighborhood on South La Brea Ave. I park my car across the street. I look at the illuminated windows of the gallery. At the exhibition, behind the glass, I notice a large colorful painting without frames. Unfortunately, from the distance separating me from the entrance, I am not able to recognize its content. However, the elegant white inscription “Vienna Woods” on the glass next to the painting clearly says: This is the shrine of Apollo, the patron of art and poetry and the guide of the muses who inspire artists.

After a few minutes I'm inside. It’s crowded and noisy. Another cyclical exhibition of works by KrakArt Group comprised of Polish artists is underway, which, as usual, attracted crowds of international public. European art still works like magic in this part of the world, and KrakArt is a well-known and respected group of seven Polish-American visual artists living in Los Angeles, California. Each of them presents a different, individual style of expression and each can boast of impressive artistic achievements. KrakArt Group consists of: Katarzyna Czerpak-Węgliński, Joanna Fodczuk-Garcia, Andrew Kolo, Leonard Konopelski, Janusz Maszkiewicz, Tomasz Misztal, and Witold Vito Wójcik. The special guest of this exhibition is the well-known and recognized sculptor Katarzyna Krzykawska, who’s very interesting, although this time small-sized sculptures are placed in various parts of the gallery on beautiful, hand-made furniture by Janusz Maszkiewicz.

My gaze falls on two large paintings, in simple black frames, hanging on the wall on the opposite side of the entrance. Squeezing through the crowd of guests, I come closer. The paintings are black and white, and each of them shows a large chair with armrests. Chairs resembling armchairs. However, these are not ordinary chairs. These chairs speak. These chairs are people. Power at all levels of this world of control and division. Someone deliberately placed them next to each other to intensify the contrast. And here I am looking at the chairs and I see symbolic, nameless people in them with their character traits, their social and professional position and their fleeting lives. The faces change, the chairs remain. The artist's message is complemented by an amazing background and a few simple red and green lines that clearly contrast with black and white. I'm impressed.

I look at the painter's name attached to the wall next to the paintings: Witold Vito Wójcik. Later I learn that Vito, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, is a representative of the neo-expressionist surrealism trend and has been recognized as one of the precursors of pop art in Poland. He deals with painting, poster and stage design as well as conservation. It is worth noting that in the 70s and 80s he worked as a conservator and restorer of the Panorama of the Battle of Racławice. In the United States, Vito also participated in numerous restoration projects, from frescoes in the Missions, Griffith Observatory, Getty Villa, David Alfredo Siqueiros, Hugo Ballin, to numerous easel paintings.

And there appears an elderly man with lush, almost white hair, a light, fancy beard and a nice face with a smile. The earthly calendar is not able to hide a young soul. Wise eyes look out from behind the glasses. His outfit is loose and even, one could say, casual. It is complemented by a thin, gray scarf wrapped slightly around the neck in the way artists usually do. Someone introduces us. The man turns out to be the author of the paintings I stared at with such curiosity.

"I look at these chairs and I see people.” I tell Vito. 

“That's great.” He replies with satisfaction, and his smile becomes even more joyful. "That was my intention...Some people do not see it.” He adds after a moment.  

“Why chairs?” I ask, curious.

“I don’t know. It started so long ago that I have already forgotten, although I painted many chairs during that time.”

After a moment of conversation, we both look at the neighboring wall. There are two more large canvases hanging on it, but this time without frames. The paintings catch the eye with their sunny hue, inspired by the colors of Southern California and the characteristic figures of people in motion. The characters, although seemingly simple and somewhat cubist, say a lot. They seem to be suspended in time and space, in which they are randomly lifted upside or down. As if they were balancing on an invisible line in the theatre of life, trying to find balance. They resemble mirror images of themselves. In places of knees and elbows, each of the figures has small white squares marked. They are reminiscent of puppets being pulled by strings by an invisible hand, but they seem to be unaware of it.

-"Master Andrew," Vito says, looking at the paintings and smiling warmly.

I know these images well. I would recognize them everywhere. The author is Andrzej Kołodziej, known in LA as Andrew Kolo. Due to his artistic commitments in Poland, the painter is absent from today's exhibition. He is not here in body, but his spirit is everywhere. Because he is the originator and founder of the KrakArt Group.

But before that, he studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where in 1968 he defended his diploma in Painting and Artistic Pedagogy with the highest grade. There was also Paris, other painting studies at the Ecole de Design Appliqué, the “Demonstrick” Group, which he founded together with the Parisian sculptor Paweł Jocz, and a conceptual show at the "VIII Biennale de Paris" at the Muse L'Art Moderne of the same group. He arrived in Los Angeles in the early 70s of the last century. With hard work, talent and his characteristic style of abstract or synthetic realism of presenting today's world, the name Andrew Kolo has become a brand in itself. His paintings have been presented at numerous exhibitions organized by prestigious galleries and institutions related to art.

I approach another, large canvas without frames. On the surface, there is nothing here. Colors, shadows, reflections, ruin. 

“What did the author mean?” I ask loudly more myself than anyone else. "What do I see?"  I add in my mind.

"And what do you see?" I hear a man's voice right behind me.

I smile with amusement. Has anyone heard my thoughts? I turn around. In front of me stands a short, slim, smiling man in a black sweater. His eyes are laughing too. I look at the painting again.

“The world is collapsing. The old leaves to make room for the new.” I answer.

"Yes," the man says. "When I was painting it, I was very upset by a certain situation that had happened. Something collapsed. Painting this picture freed me from those emotions and brought me peace.”

Here is Janusz Maszkiewicz standing, the author of the painting and also the owner of the gallery. The artist is a graduate of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Chemistry. He became famous not only as a painter, but also as a valued conservator of monuments and a carpenter creating beautiful artistic furniture. All the furniture that stands in this gallery was made by his hands. During the conversation, I find out that the painting I saw in the shop window also came from his brush.

I walk further along the same wall and come across three, large frameless paintings with something painted on them, which at first I call monsters and fears from the virtual world. One can get the impression that these strange creatures have just jumped out of some computer program. On a white canvas, without a background, someone has painted something in sharp colors that seems to exist in some other dimension, as if on the level of the human subconscious, and has just been activated to jump into the world of people, called reality. Or maybe it's been here for a long time, but people didn't want to see it or talk about it. Or maybe they were just afraid of it. Monsters take on different shapes. Monsters are fear, and fear is a monster. First, monsters form in our heads to appear later in our lives. Thought creates. Fear in the head creates fear in the world. And Fear goes hand in hand with control. With a division into slave and master. Into the executioner and the victim. Omnipresent fear. Fear propaganda painted in bright, though dirty colors, which shouts to you: “You should be afraid.” And the more people create monsters in their heads, the more of these monsters of fear are in the world. The force of collective consciousness and beliefs is very powerful. Collective consciousness creates specific events.

I look at the plaque with the name of the author of these intriguing poster-like paintings and everything becomes clear. Leonard Konopelski, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, is a painter, graphic artist and designer recognized in the international art world. He creates film and theatre posters, as well as stage designs and theatre costumes for the world's largest companies. He is also an artist belonging to the circle of the “Polish School of Posters.” For many years, the artist has been teaching applied graphics at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

I move on and stand in front of a row of small graphics in black frames. I look at them carefully, although due to the light of the lamps reflected in the glass, it is not easy. At each picture, I move away and get closer; I look straight ahead, look from the left and from the right. I try to find the right angle of view, as if I were looking at what was painted on them from different perspectives.

And this is indeed the case. And that's how it was supposed to be. Although at that moment I don't know it yet. Often, however, it takes time to understand something. Understanding is a process. And to really understand something, it is worth looking at it from different angles. And when we do, it turns out that a six can be a nine and vice versa. We notice that nothing is unambiguous. It is not what it seems to be. Everything is multidimensional. Multi-spatial. One is in the other, and one is the other, although it seems to be something separate. And this multidimensionality creates a whole. It is one. It's all a matter of light and mirrors. Light, light in light and millions of reflections. Mirrors, mirrors within mirrors and more mirrors. Mirror images. And each of us sees this reflection, this image that we want to see. We see ourselves, our perspective, although sometimes we don’t know it. Everyone chooses what they see. Light is a perspective. Light is consciousness. Sometimes you try to enclose it in the frames of some picture that your head has created, but it slips away. It creates depth, creates alternative worlds and dimensions. Because the universe is one big mirror made up of more and more mirrors. Reality reflects itself.

The graphics I look at seem to talk about this. They show man and his multidimensional nature. The multidimensionality of everything. Both the body, i.e. matter, and every aspect of our lives. And in the center is the heart, synonymous with divine love and life given by the Creator of All Things. For the heart, there are no borders. Because the Creator is everything and in everything. Man is a reflection of divine truth. If you want to see more, don't look with your head. Look with your heart. The heart always sees more. The head forms the frames. Constraints. Your head is a computer with various programs stored on the hard drive of your subconscious mind, and you don't even know how many of these programs are infected with viruses and which of them are giving you false data. The truth is in the heart. And when you look with your heart, the framework and limitations disappear. And then you understand that not everything is as it seems to us.

This time, the author's name was clearly written on the paintings. Tomasz Misztal is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk, where he also defended his doctoral degree. His art, whether painting, drawing or sculpture, is focused on man as a compilation of body and spirit. The multidimensionality of man in every aspect. Numerous works of this artist are presented in churches and museums around the world. There is also no shortage of them in private collections. It is worth mentioning that the sculpture and bas-relief, which Tomasz commissioned by the Solidarity movement made for Pope John Paul II in 1987, are now in the Vatican Museum.

On a long wall there is a large, oblong canvas that seems to dominate the entire room. I look at it from a distance to better grasp the whole of this work. Someone's hand painted longitudinal wavy lines on it, resembling the waves of a river. Various shades of purple, green and yellow dominate. Someone standing next to me talks about the soothing color scheme. The upper wave is blue and above it is a hollow, white canvas. “Could it be an unfinished painting?” I think to myself, looking at the painting with curiosity. There seems to be nothing here, but there is some magic in it that catches myeye. The image clearly intrigues me. I come closer and read the author's name: Joanna Fodczuk–Garcia.

Next to a large canvas, in small, white frames, there are pictures with similar content, although differing in the shade of pastels. Pictures from another world. Pictures showing a different world.

"What is it? What did the author mean?” Again, in thought, I ask myself the same question aloud that I asked a few minutes earlier and, as if automatically, I ask another one in my head: "What do I see?" It is a bit difficult to concentrate in the surrounding noise and squeezing through the crowd of guests. However, these two questions seem to be like twin flames going hand in hand and have been with me for as long as I can remember.

"And what do you see?" I hear exactly the same answer in the form of the same question that was directed at me a few minutes earlier. I smile. It seems that I am in the right place in this world.

The question is as if inscribed in the beginning of existence. “I?” asks the Source of Everything. And here another question arises “Who is I?”  And in order to find the answer, you have to go back to the Source. To take a long and incredibly interesting journey into the depth of yourself. To experience. To turn on mindfulness and listen to your soul. Ask “What do I see?” When you ask, the answers always come. The source is within us.

This time the voice belongs to a woman. And this voice is calm, quiet and warm. Very feminine. As if soothing. As if it did not fit into the noisy place and situation. Next to me stands a beautiful girl with long, dark, slightly wavy hair. She radiates peace and a kind of nostalgia. I don't see what she's wearing. I see a beautiful creature that seems to live in its own world and its own colors, which it has chosen. I see a girl as if from a different fairy tale than what is around me. A girl from the stars who descended into a strange, flashy world of people and didn't necessarily feel comfortable in it. That is why she created her own world, in which there is silence, peace, pastel colors and wind music. I don't know who this beautiful girl is yet, but I feel that there is something special about her. We introduce ourselves. This is Joanna. The author of these slightly strange, abstract paintings that attract and repel at the same time. They are intriguing. They hypnotize. They make you think. They make you ask questions. And everyone sees something different in them.

"I see a river.” Someone says, as if answering the woman's question. "For me, it's a river.”

"I'm glad you see that.” The woman replies in a calm, warm voice, turning to the man.

"Did you really paint a river?"  I ask because my association was different.

 “No. I painted sand. But it doesn't matter. It is important what someone sees in this image.”

„Can you paint sand?”

“It is not easy. The sand in the desert changes all the time. Minute by minute. From second to second. The color, shape, light change. The desert is a special place. Magic.”

"You left a spot unpainted where the sky is. Have you not finished painting this picture?”

"This painting is finished.”

"White sky?”

"Yes. The sky is white,” says the girl and her smile is delicate and beautiful.

Yes...The sky is white...It is so simple and obvious, and so often overlooked by many. Misunderstood. Maybe because we often see through the programs we have in our heads. Because that's how we've been taught. Trained, or even trained in specific thinking. We look through the prism of our beliefs, experiences and our own truths. We see what we want to see. And lo and behold, this beautiful girl from the desert just says: “The sky is white.” The rest is our imagination. Colors and the world we create for ourselves are the creation of our thought. The desert is not empty either, although we often perceive it as such. The desert is alive. It is enough to look with the heart and everything around us takes on a different shape, dimension, color. The light is within us. We reflect it outwards and observe a kind of dance of light, which we call energy. And this energy creates what we call our reality. We create it in the white of the sky, which we paint with our own colors.

Joanna Fodczuk–Garcia comes from Bielsko-Biała. She is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, where she studied under the supervision of Professor Jerzy Kałucki. She practices abstract painting in oil, acrylic and watercolor. She is fascinated by shape, light and color. Her works have been exhibited at many shows in renowned Californian galleries, as well as in New York, Mexico City, Warsaw and Seoul, among others. Currently, the artist lives and works in the art community in California's Mojave Desert.

As if in contrast to Joanna's subdued interior landscapes, two more frameless canvases hang right next to it. Like Andrzej Kołodziej's paintings, these also attract attention with their color. This time, however, it is red and its various shades. They attract with their warmth. I come closer.

The paintings resemble tapestries precisely woven with delicate thread. In some places, it looks like embroidery that came from the hand of a skilful embroidery artist. It makes you want to cuddle up in them and wrap them like a warm blanket. Pink, red, warm gold, and a bit of green dominate. But there is also some black and gray. As it is in life. And they are. Two beautiful, pink roses, which, although small in relation to the whole painting, seem to dominate this image. The flowers are at a certain distance from each other, but they seem to be looking at each other. Or maybe it's the same rose, only surrounded by different colors. A different energy. A mirror image of the same, albeit seen from a different perspective. One makes two and two is one. ”What is it? What do I see?” I ask myself in my mind. And at that moment I hear, or rather feel more, the answer somewhere inside me: “It's Love.”

The second painting features the same rose motif, but in different colors. Dark red and black. And as if for contrast, right next to it, there are elements of light green leaves that seem to float in this image-enclosed space-time, which seems to have neither time nor space. "What is it? What do I see?” I ask myself the same questions in my mind again. "This is life.”

The man is a flower. Beautiful, delicate and strong at the same time. Love is life. And life is about love. And this love takes on different colors. We learn love by experiencing. But once we understand what love is about, acceptance comes, which turns into peace. And then we float. Higher and higher, wrapped in love and carried by the wind like a leaf in the wind. No resistance, no anger, no rush. Without the baggage of the past and without fear for the future. There is only this Now moment. And it's good. Just good. There is love and joy of life, because we have become love ourselves.

When I read the author's name, I'm not surprised that it's a woman. This is Kasia Czerpak-Węgliński, an amazing girl who infects others with her joyful energy. When I look at her, I see a smiling face and smiling eyes. I have the impression that this beautiful being has descended into this world to remind people of what many have forgotten. About the fact that it is more pleasant to live in joy than in sadness. About the fact that by holding hands you can go further and see more than when these hands are fighting with each other.

Katarzyna (Kasia) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Czech Republic. She deals with painting, installation art and printmaking. She eagerly experiments with technique, using resins, sand, wax, metal, rust and self-made pigments applied to canvas or paper for her art. Her art, exhibited at many shows and exhibitions around the world, does not go unnoticed. The artist is a finalist of numerous international competitions and her works can be found in many international, public and private art collections around the world.

From where I stand, I look at the crowd of guests talking. Some are sitting, others are standing. Some drink something, others eat, and others are silent, listening, observing. For some, appearing at this vernissage is an opportunity to socialize, others are driven here by curiosity, and still others by genuine interest in contemporary art, which for many is quite difficult to perceive and is very different from the so-called classical painting. It often needs an interpreter. Someone who will explain something. Someone who will tell you what someone else is supposed to think. Just like outside. In the world we call our reality. In every time, in every era, artists depict the world from the perspective of the world in which they live. They show the world that surrounds them. And this world is not always easy to understand.

The question “What did the author mean?” is often asked. I ask it too. But I also always ask another question “What do I see?” And perhaps this question is the meaning of art and the meaning of life. Because the word “see” is a kind of synonym for the word “feel.” After all, the author is a mailman bringing a message from...the author of all that we call the Universe. The creator of what we call life. The author is an Artist. Perhaps that is why he assigned beautiful Muses to earthly artists to be their inspiration and support them in receiving messages sent from another world to this world. The artist conveys them in various forms. And the channel of transmission is the soul of the artist. The recipient of the message is the one who looks at the painting. Anyone who reads a poem or listens to music. After all, life is art, and art is beauty in itself. All you need to do is change your perspective. You just need to want to see more. All you have to do is open up to yourself. The recipient is the one who decodes the message. Maybe that's why the paintings presented at this exhibition don't have titles. Not to suggest anything to the recipient. Not to tell him what to think. So that the recipient can find own answers. Because all the answers are within us.

Slowly, carefully, I move my eyes over all the paintings. "What do I see?" I ask in my mind. I listen to myself. I observe my thoughts, feelings. The answers come from within. The images are arranged like frames of a film projected in front of my eyes. But this is not an ordinary film. It is a film screened in another world, about this world. A message from another dimension. And I tell in words what a painter paints with a brush. After all, everything is an impression. Everything is energy. Everything is information. Everything is an image. And all of this together makes history. We live in stories. The world painted with a brush is the world seen through the eyes of the soul. A painting tells a story. Color is the word and a line is the comma. When you ask questions, the answers always come. Just turn on mindfulness.

And here I am looking at the paintings of KrakArt artists and thinking how coherent this exhibition is and how much it reflects the contemporary world in which we live. The masculine energy manifested in the artists of this group shows the contemporary world, in which forceful chairs of power rule, and a man lost in this strange reality often becomes an ordinary puppet trying to think and not to think simultaneously. They show a world of division, fear and destruction. Omnipresent fear seems to take over the beautiful mind and free soul of man. Someone or Something is trying to lock you in the narrow framework of the third dimension, and the KrakArt artist says: “You are a multidimensional being. You are a free being. Fear is an illusion and it's only in your head. Fear is just a computer program. Your virtual reality that you have created for yourself. Change your thought, and your reality will change.”

The KrakArt artist shows that the world of fear and self-proclaimed power is collapsing before our eyes. The old gods are dying. They leave defeated, or rather run away and desperately try to hold on to their chairs like thrones. And according to the war principle of “scorched earth,” they sow even more destruction and even more fear. But their world has already fallen apart. The world they created is a ruin. The old leaves to make room for the new.

A lost man asks: “What will this new world be like? What should I do? Where to look for help?” And this is where the female energy of KrakArt artists comes in. With a brush and Joanna's colors, she says: “You will hear the answers in silence. Listen to yourself. Everything you need is within you. Remind yourself who you are. Find your light and your colors...in yourself.” And Kasia, with a smile on her lips and a joyful twinkle in her eyes, says with her art, with roses and warm colors of the paintings: “Love is the answer to everything.”

And when I am decoding the message brought by the KrakArt artists, at some point my gaze crosses with another gaze. I don't know who this man is, but his eyes look at me in a friendly and warm way. He smiles at me happily, as if we've known each other forever, and says: “The hand is an extension of the heart.” Then he walks away and disappears in the crowd. Another mailman with another, very wise message.

©Katarzyna Nowocin-Kowalczyk (CatherineNK)

*****

The Hand Is an Extension of The Heart

text from the book:

TIME OF CHANGES

Let's talk about Love, Fear, Freedom and Time

author: Katarzyna Nowocin-Kowalczyk

translation: Elizabeth Kanski

AMAZON

eBook

👉  This book is available in Polish and English