A Word

A reflection, and the feeling it evoked, born during the contemplation of a mountain landscape at the foot of the Himalayas became the seed of this story.

In the noise and chaos of the world around us we have forgotten what truly feeds and nourishes us. We have forgotten that we have a soul which, beneath layers of illusion, patiently waits for us to notice it. When we do manage to recognise it, however, we set off on an extraordinary journey into ourselves, towards the place from which it calls us. To the place where everything begins. To the source..

Everyone who has experienced this knows that the soul needs space in order to reveal itself fully. That place is our own inner self, lent for the purpose. To get there, it is enough to stop. And simply begin to be. This is not always easy, though. We have become too attached to our own notions, which obscure the true picture of reality. If we want to see it, we have to push through a thicket of veils. Behind them lies a place where we can hear only silence and experience only emptiness..

The paintings emerged from this silence. They are a record of arriving at the emptiness in which everything appears in an unconstrained form free of distortion, without filters or frames, free of imposed patterns. Because only then can we see things as they are. And that completely changes the perspective from which we look at life, and changes our relationships with ourselves and with the world. We begin to see that we are, in essence, the creators of reality. We create from "nothing". We also come to see that the outer world is a mirror image of the inner one. Nothing more. A space of freedom opens up, expressed in tenderness towards what is, as it is. Acceptance appears.

The creative process is a mystery touching the incomprehensible, governed by its own rules. We cannot have control over it. It is a phenomenon from beyond the mind, even from beyond time and space. The only thing we can do is allow it to express itself as it reveals itself, and let it resound. We can be observers of our own creative process. Not naming, not defining, not limiting. It is enough to look and admire in silence and stillness, because we are touching an infinity that contains everything. Simply to be present, because we always create in the present moment, and our life is a sequence of connected moments, like the continuous line of the title, a sequence of tightly connected points stretching into infinity. Without beginning and without end.

The paintings emerging from the boundless are a material record of experiences that are points on this line. Thanks to this we can follow what flows. Look closely at a phenomenon that came into being in another person and, at a certain moment, become aware of the impression that this phenomenon is also an integral part of ourselves, that it has always been part of our own experience too. And that now we have merely recognised it.

The inspiration for writing the above Word was my meeting with Iwona Zawadzka and her exceptional work, and the extraordinary and unusual conversations that accompanied it. For which I am grateful. It is also with great pleasure that I share this..

Aleksandra Szumniak