Nr 4 (2022) Painting by Helena Rajska

The “Oblivion” series is a story of fading memories. How do we remember ourselves and how do others remember us? Are these memories accurate and clear? Do they deform perhaps? All the works presented in this series were created based on a photoshoot by Patrycja Ślusarczyk, and the starting point was the work with a quick sketch, which is emphasised with a red line in the paintings.

Curatorial text by Karolina Wójcik:
Creative power is an unquestionable conscious choice leading to the creation of a specific matter. Etymologically, the word "consciousness" means the sharing of knowledge, which is largely an individual experience. The artist does not paint mechanically under the influence of inspiration oozing from an undefined absolute, but makes a responsible choice.
The questions about lasting, meaning, suffering, about experiences are permanent for Helena Rajska, but each time they give a different, new and fresher testimony. Starting from individual lessons, the artist tries to speak a language common for everyone. With her work, she fills the field of unspoken words, indefinable experiences and struggles. From the position of an individual, she flows sovereignly towards collective minor keys, thus building the figure of a transformed transgressive man, i.e. a multidimensional man, capable of crossing material and metaphysical boundaries. The mystical sphere of "beyond" is graded thanks to painterly understatements, a specific form and used symbolism. Paint smudges, mechanical abrasions and scratches lead the viewer to the topic of memory and its derivatives. Helena Rajska is not afraid to touch the issue of oblivion as her paradigm. It thus indicates the formation of gaps in memories arising at the time of healing traumas or experiencing strong stress. Since the artist doesn’t strive to present a specific physiognomy, she universalizes, translates individual experience into problems affecting the community. It allows free identification and, finding common elements. Painting thus becomes a medium, a transmitter between the artist and the viewer. At the same time, each of the presented series is characterized by deep metaphors hidden behind t consciously used colour, outline and form. It is not without reason that Helena Rajska focuses on the dominant blue and red in her paintings, it is not without reason that she constructs mental experiences in the form of abstraction, and it is not without reason that she returns to previously processed themes. Re-collision with the past is something natural for the artist, stemming to some extent from the need of verification whether the emotions associated with her have not been petrified.

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