Interview: Kasia Slania
Luca Curci talks with Kasia Slania, winner of the ARTIST OF THE MONTH – July 2023 competition.

“In my abstracts, which are composed of a thick, anxious line covered in paper scraps, there are cropped portraits, figures, and organic forms. Old child drawings, maps, and labels are scattered here and there on a background of crumpled paper. I appreciate imperfections because they contain so much beauty. And when emotions are emphasized by colour, it becomes a deeply private experience“.

Luca Curci – What is the trigger that leads you to paint?
Kasia Slania – That something, the need to get dirty…. both literally and figuratively. And the need to get rid of various thoughts. Throwing away and processing, above all, ordinary, small events, and moments in life. At some point, they start to tell a story that is completely unexpected and turns into a metaphor.

LC – Which artists have somehow had an influence on your work?
KS – I think first it was Francisco Goya. Was just a kid and I don’t know where I found it, but his portraits made me stunned. Then I found Art Brut, and – love it still – they are my heroes: Jean Dubuffet, Antoni Tàpies, Slavko Kopač.

LC – Do you use art to express something in particular? Is it your medium of expression?
KS – Art is always a means of expression. You not admitting to it, you can deny it or repress it – as I did for many years. But now for me, it’s like getting too much information out of my head. Such a break from reality. In a strange, twisted way – I record this enormity of everyday tiny events and stories. Besides this physical contact with the material. I simply love contact with paper, pastels, paints, sharpening pencils the old-fashing way – with a knife, unwrapping pastels from paper…

LC – How do you choose your subjects? Is it a reasoned or an instinctive process?
KS – Totally Instinctive processes resulting from observation. I look at people, remembering their shapes and behaviour. Then these are characters completely from memory. But most of all, I make a mental note to a moment, just one moment in life and at that point, it became instinctive!

LC – How do you feel when you see your work completed?
KS – I feel relieved! Not in the sense that I’m relieved that my task is over – no! It’s a kind of euphoric sense of relief that this… um… story has already been told, illustrated, completed, and transmitted. It doesn’t belong to me anymore. It has its own unique existence.