Dorota texts

Text 1

When I stand in Gallery 2 which is located upstairs at Uilinn West Cork Arts Center in Skibbereen, I find myself experiencing a very particular state. The weather is crucial here

- wind, clouds, and sunshine allow it to happen. I need to face the highest wall in the room. First, I search for my own spot, where I can see the water through the large windows on both sides of the room - on the right, flowing in; on the left, flowing out. When I look up at the high wall in front of me, my peripheral vision catches the clouds passing by in the sky from right to left, like water beneath my feet - the part of the water I cannot see but know is there.

The gap in sight makes all the difference. I can't see the whole fow of water; I can only see it coming in and going out. It's the same with the clouds, which gives me this particular feeling - that they pass through me, as if I am the gap.

Encapsulated by the architecture that grounds me, I turn inward. I project many thoughts onto the white wall in front of me. Then, the sunshine anives, painting its own image using the rectangular shapes of the windows. Because of the wall's height, it gives me the right perspective - reminding me that I am a small part of this world.

At first, unconsciously, I imagine the sky behind it. I want to connect one window with another. I draw clouds in my mind. Then, a feeling of gratitude arises. I feel safe within the building that holds me, alowing me to see the world from a different - very human-perspective.

As the Finnish architect Juhani Palasmaa kept saying: "Architecture's task is to articulate and express the essence of cur lived world and to enable us to dwell in this world." (The Eyes Of The Skin, p. 72)

Text 2

*..drawing is a manual activity whose aim is (...) to turn appearances and disappear. ances into a game that is more serious than life," says John Berger in his letter to Jim Elkins (p 109-110)

I add a line to my drawing on the wall - movement appears. Another ine - movement disappears. A few more dots, and the drawing falls apart into space. A good few more, and a wave emerges. What am I chasing here? After a while, I realize that it is a feeling I experienced in the Arctic I am after. A sensation of being more alive. But how can you feel 'more alive' than you already are? Is it a heightened awareness of existence - of being part of everything else? In a conversation with Piotr Brysacz, a Polish writer An-

arzo orasek s0geests that nomans nave a meridnysee noos to tike pur in somodig

water in Hockney's Portrait of an Artist (Poal with Two Figures) fragmented and vibrant.

In moments, it transforms into Monet's Water Lies, shimmering with brushstrokes of

As I am writing this, I think about how remarkable these paintings are that I am capable of seeing the world through these artists' eyes.

And then, back at the stream, I wonder - aren't we simiar?

We, too, reflect everything we've encountered in ife. The conversations we've had, the sights we've seen, the losses we've endured, the happiness we've cherished, the people we've met, and the knowledge we've gained - all of it leaves an imprint on us and provides the material to make sense cut of this world. Some memories fade quickly. while others mark us forever, shaping the essence of who we are.

Beyond that, we construct our own image of ourselves, while others carry their own versions of us in their minds. When I look at the water, I receive an inverted image of the stream reflected on my retina.

"...water invented us as a way to appreciate itself," wrote Alck Jha in his "Water Book" In the light of everything that's happening around the world I ask myself was it a successful creation?

Text 5

I'm still reflecting on my work at the Uilinn residency and that it brought me back a tiny piece of a feeling experienced in the Arctic - a feelng of being more alive. Looking at a photograph or painting of that place does not evoke the same sensation in me. But the act of making - the process of creation - can.

Bridget Filey observed "You cannot deal with thought directly outside practice as a painter: "doing" is essential in order to find out what form your thought take". I want to paraphrase her words: "I cannot deal with a feeling directly cutside art practice: "doing" is essential in order to find out what form your feeing take.

For me, drawing is about the tangibility of the experience. The sense of touch and hearing ground me in both the work and the world: the charcoal beneath my fingers, the texture of the wall, the movement of my body, the sound of drawing itself. The proosss is shaped by the possibilities and limitations of materials and space, by the endurance of my body, and by the constraints of time.

"To draw is to know by hand - to have the

proof that Thomas demanded." wrote John Berger. That is wity thinking in the abstract,

greater than themselves - something that transcends them. And space fulfills that need.

(Looking towards the East, p. 22) I belizve making art can bring me a small piece of that feeling back. And John Berger writes in the same letter that drawing "is as fundamental to the energy that makes us human as singing and dancing" (p. 109).

Text 3

Drawing is also about seeing - and about not seeing. I have to leave my studio to truly see the drawing again. When I work too long, I stop seeing it. And as I type this, a thought arises: isn't life like that too? I stop seeing the parts of life I've become too used to. The daily mundane, which makes up so much of it. Maybe, on Monday morning, as I prepare lunch for my daughter, I should leave the room for a second too, then come back and see it all over again. See her, sitting there in carefully chosen clothes (but really see them!) and hear her asking if al wood has to be oled. She leaves 'her room" far more often than I do. Being young, she hasn't yet grown accustomed to ife.

When I was in my 20s I wrote a text for an art book which my sister and I were working on together. In it, I described a dream I had: I was in a kind of yoga class, where they asked me to bite my own arm - to push beyond my own imits. I started wondering - what if you could step outside yourself, just for a moment? Step out, have a coffee, throw the itter away, see yourself from the outside, and then step back in. How wonderful that would be.

Later in life, I learned that certain experiences let you, help you, or force you to step outside yourself. Or you just need more time. You see it, but you can't change it. Still, seeing it can change your present perception of yourself. Like me now, reading a text ! wrote many years ago.

Text 4

When I look at the Caol Stream running at Uillinn West Cork Arts Center in Skibbereen or the Kealnagower Stream in the heart of Kenmare, I start to think that humans, being made up of 50 - 70% water, share more in common than just this building compo-nent.". I begin to suspect that our composition profoundly impacts who we are.

Water reflects everything around it - colours, shapes - stretching as far as its surface alows ight to reach. it is constantly changing, shifting with the time of day, the weather, the depth, and the speed of its current. Influenced by the flora and fauna within it, the water becomes its own interpretation of the world. Sometimes, it offers a sharp, mir-ror-like reflection; other times, it resembles the rippling shapes of the swimming pool

in ideas alone, is never enough for me. I need to to engage with psychical world.

And yet, when I read the physicist Sean Carroll, who states, 'the world as we experience it" is certainly related to "the world as it really is...but the relationship is complicat-ed, I cannot help but wonder: Does materiality exist at all? And will it ever be possible to find out?

Drawing on the wall acknowledges that everything is temporary - I do not want to pretend othenwise. Strangely, the impermanence of my installation reassures me. It feels right. It aligns with the nature of everything - with entropy itself.

Does the act of making the work reflect the act of living? I wonder if this is what makes me feel more alive, more connected. I recently came across these beautiful words by Emily Dickinson 'Forever is composed of Nows." When I draw I am in the now. I fill spa-cetime with marks. The spacetime, in turn, determines (shapes) my mark. The drawing is never finished. It will not last. But it is here - now. At least in my experience.

Text 6

Here are a few quotes that accompanied me on my journey of creating the installation at

'If, for diagrammatic convenience, one accepts the metaphor of time as a flow, a river, then the act of drawing, by driving upstream, achieves the stationary." John Berger, "On Drawing"

"A pebble polished by waves is pleasurable to the hand, not only because of it's scoth-ing shape, but because it expresses the slow process of its formation; a perfect pebble on the palm materialises duration, it is time turned into shape".

Juhani Pallasmaa, "The Eyes of the Skin"

1605

Each that we lose takes part of us:

A crescent still abides.

Which ike the moon, some turbid night, Is summoned by the tides.

Emily Dickinson