3Drawing
To see how the project evolved, please visit:
https://tomaszwiktor.wordpress.com/works/
Almost two decades ago, I began the process of transforming my realistic compositions into abstract images. I found I could express my emotions and feelings more directly through abstraction. However, conveying incomprehensible messages without a clear code prompted me in 2007 to analyze these indistinct signs and shapes. So I turned off the light, closed my eyes, and began drawing in the darkness. I tried to find the significance behind each stroke that I drew. I did everything to avoid aesthetic habits, and to reach the root of my actions. At times I drew with my right hand, others with my left, occasionally with both at the same time, and at times only with my mouth.
What came out were independent thoughts that were reflected in my drawings. The marks interlaced, overlapped and ultimately covered each other. Trying to record these thoughts as they came by pencil on a 2D surface was in some ways limited and futile. While in my memory I could move back and forth in these thoughts, on paper everything was flat and lost under layers of other pencil strokes. Just then, my hand spontaneously started to detach from the sheet of paper and draw in the air, reaching, searching for a new, unlimited space where physical borders are minimized. It was at that moment I decided to build my own tool to record that type of manifestation.
INNER SKETCH
One of my first attempts to capture “Drawing in the Space” was by taping the walls of a dark room with photo paper to record all the gestures I made in the studio’s interior. I was looking for a simple method that would naturally engage the whole body as a medium that collects experiences of all our senses from complex space that surround us. I held a torch in my hand, turned it on and began to move.
SISYPHEAN DANCE
The remaining flat record of my drawing inclined me to look for an area where the final result could be displayed from many sides. In winter 2008, I used rolled snowballs to make a drawing on a 38 acre parcel of land. The use of uneven terrain, and the possibility of entering between the lines and merging them into the surrounding space, were associated with the resistance, motionless and the ephemeral form of Sisyphean Dance. I decided to collect these experiences, but return to more spontaneous motion records.
ACTION DRAWING
What I found was that drawing with light and a stereoscopic recording with a camera using long exposure, proved to be the smoothest way of expression outside of a flat sheet of paper. It still did not free me from watching the final effects from only one plane of view, but it allowed for the creation of intuitive, high-speed, multi-dimensional drawings.
FREE DRAWING
It led me to create my own computer application that engages the whole body, allowing people to draw freely in the air. Since 2009, I have been developing my own program and method of new depiction for my artwork. While I was already able to create three-dimensional forms that could imitate or alter the natural world in open space, I decided to take things further and more freely express abstract notions, as it was my first intention.
In 2010, I went to China to study how human language and visual symbols evolved into art of calligraphy. It was an opportunity to understand how in Chinese characters a simple picture and humen inner energy (qi) could be transformed into minimal forms that contained complex information. In the two years I was there, I was awarded second place and jury distinction at the Beijing and Shanghai International Calligraphy Competitions. After that, I came back to Poland and began work on the final stages of my project.
Inspired by many ancient languages and Chinese calligraphy, which not only emphasizes writing skills but also sees the characters as a way to express our best, real personality, I decided to reinforce original abstract symbols and create on my own signs.
Combining different culture and art fields such as land art, performance, calligraphy, dance and sculpture, I cannot just call my work ordinary drawing anymore. I developed a holistic style of self-expression in an evolving digital reality, creating symbols that make my abstract forms more understandable and clear. In my new open and free space, I am creating minimalistic works that represent freedom of movement, freedom of our inner potential, freedom of new expression.
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