Karina Brzostowski on Curatorspace
Karina Brzostowski: Secret Garden
Karina Brzostowski's works tend to capture a moment in time, a place, a feeling or a memory. They also reflect the relationship she has with herself and her surroundings. A theme central to her work is the idea of perception which is heavily influenced by expectations, experiences and moods. How she feels affects what she sees and as a consequence what and how she paints.
"The lockdown had an impact on my art practice as I was experiencing a major change in my life as well. I had lived for 7 years in Brighton, UK. In March 2020, I relocated with my partner to Dubai. Five days after I arrived, the lockdown started in the UAE and in most countries in the world. At first I felt lucky to live in a villa with a beautiful garden with a community of professionals, but it wasn't long before everyone lost their jobs. Being an introvert, it was a challenge for me to be surrounded by so many people all the time, especially during a hard time like lockdown. Everybody was experiencing high levels of stress and worry and the atmosphere in the villa was becoming sour. I started to spend more time by myself in the garden and got inspired to create a series of paintings called 'Secret Garden'. This was my escape mentally and physically. The 'now' was the most important state of mind as the pandemic made everything uncertain and insecure.
When creating my Secret Garden series, I used bright and unusual colors as a way to force the viewer to look better and rediscover places differently. It became a call to open up, become more aware of our environment and how we interpret our surroundings. I wanted to make what is around us more visible, more blissful, to keep us positive and hopeful regarding the future. Nature is often taken for granted and we don't see it anymore when life is hectic. Here is a time where we can observe, enjoy simple things, rest and reset. The idea of a secret garden was also related to what happens in our dreams, our creativity and to the hidden sides of our psyche. It is the place of our inhibitions and secrets, a personal landscape that we all have. The lockdown was a good time to look inside and get closer to our inner selves. These works can be seen as a hymn to my own femininity as a female painter, and a way for me to connect with the outside world to make my experience visible."
You can see more of Karina's work by following her on Facebook (http://facebook.com/mademoisellekarina) or
Instagram (http://instagram.com/mademoiselle.karina.b).