KAMA ROSINSKA

Artist's Statement - Long Version

This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go.

D. H. Lawrence

Mystery and shadow, things hidden, have always been my fascination and as such are the starting points of my work and the points I aim to arrive at the same time, albeit exposed - shadowy spheres of the psyche and the reality, less known and for that reason considered weird,dangerous, or eerie.

In my practice, I draw on depth psychology and cultural anthropology and, what follows, mythology, the occult and alchemic symbolism, the natural world as well as, equally important, mystical and spiritual traditions, music and dance. I look for the living symbol capturing archetypal energy, connections between psyche and mater and the expression of one in the other: the pang of awe broadening the perception of what and how the human being and their universe is - an image that makes the heart beat faster.

For that reason, I believe in non-intellectual reception of art and that any true artistic expression starts from within; that the factual dialogue between the artist and the recipient takes place beyond words and ready concepts. My approach can be by summed up by de Chirico's"What shall I love if not the enigma” - and from this assumption my areas of interest stem almost naturally: transformation, identity, freedom in the sense of self-government and self-expression, the feminine, mystery as the essence of things.

My principal medium is a middle ground between photography, drawing and painting where analogue or digital photography is a point of departure. In the recent years I have mainly worked in the technique of my own design involving analogue photography, collage, chemical and manual manipulation and digital painting, but I also explore and work in the traditional mediums of drawing and oil and acrylic painting. The process itself is intuitive to a high degree, drawing on C.G. Jung's technique of active imagination, where I let and work with images and ideas that emerge in response to an initial theme, sign or form – following them as my guides into the unknown.

Although I would describe my work as figurative, a direct representation is unappealing to me. My core work is removed from reality as such, as I rather go for imagery from imagination. Through images from the depth I feel I can connect to archetypal energies at play: to glance the mystery.

While at the bottom there always lies a very basic, almost physical need to create that does not give in to interpretation or explanation, I believe in a revealing, illuminating and healing function of art as I see the human being as animal symbolicum. What we live in is an epoch without soul, an immediate result of, among other factors, the ideology of extreme mechanistic materialism the Western culture has been immersed in since the industrial revolution. Everyday experience of the feeling of loss, desperation, depression testifies best to the extent of this approach as a cul de sac for the human nature. Over-intellectualisation of human experience in all its aspects has basically made us miserable and lost. I see art as the source of transcendent experience much needed in today's world, and a healing factor, provided one is not afraid of delving deep and restoring the “magic”. As a self-appointed “new symbolist” I find that it might be that through studying, working with and finding a relevant form for the timeless symbols of the most important matters of the human soul, helping to remember that we go much deeper as species than physical survival, a balance can be restored.