Kasia Turajczyk - Much Ado About My Art

My devotion to Pinocchio is not a secret. I have always loved the character from the book by Carlo Collodi. I loved Disney's Pinocchio, I love the Russian Pinocchio, and I love my two Pinocchio toys. They have travelled with me around the world; they are ancient and wise. Made in Russia, they came from Russia to me. They are old, probably 50 and 45 years old. They are ageing. One of them has lost his hair and, unfortunately, his nose. Since I was introduced to Pinocchio's character, I have always been painting and drawing this wonderful marionette. Pinocchio willy-nilly was becoming a hero of my work. My first portrait of Pinocchio was an oil on canvas, very expressionistic, with fat, large strokes of brush paint. It is a dark painting. The next was lighter, brighter, finer, with the spell of impressionistic touch. The series Return of Peter Pan also has a Pinocchio theme. Two brothers sitting close to each other and talking. A few years ago, I made another painting with Pinocc...

 I am working on a new Cats&Co. series with Chinese references and motives. Searching, researching, drawing, sketching, procrastinating and sabotaging myself, too. It is so weird. I love to paint and to create, and at the same time, I do everything possible to sabotage myself. Isn't it strange? Art is my love, my passion, my vocation and still, I do everything possible to sabotage myself, not to do what I want. It doesn't even make sense to me. But that is how it is at the moment.  The worst enemy we have, humans, is not somebody else but our mind, our thoughts, that "other I' inside us. I am trying to remember whose book it is, who was talking about the double mind inside the physical brain we have, the one lazy who is predominant, fast and intuitive and the other more logical and sensible but much slower as the lazy one. Kanheman? Yes, Daniel Kahneman "Thinking fast and slow". (I just found the book on the shelf).  I am forcing myself to work and do wha...

Three weeks before last Christmas - December 2013 - I was in one of my thousands of melancholic moods. I was brooding about the human condition, especially about the inanity and foolishness of my species. I went to my studio, picked up a small canvas, some acrylic and oil paints, and in no time a new painting was born. To be or not to be - a short story of the tragic life of a freak. The little cripple is very unfortunate - he has only one hand,  weird asymmetric eyes, he is not handsome and in addition he is also very lonely. The whole group of very diverse puppets and toys do not accept him. I like him,  but he is not satisfied with my company. In desperation he decides to go on stage, pretends to commit suicide and in front of the other puppets he asks: To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. detail - To ...