Gosha Karpowicz

I am an abstract painter. My work is process oriented, exploring movement, space, a sense of place, human touch.
I build my paintings from the background, from an atmosphere of a place, with layers of the past affecting the present. I am sensitive to the surface of the canvas fabric, sometimes i wash it if it is free from stretchers. I may make my earth pigments by crushing river stones. I may mark space by drawing lines of paint across the surface, pulling them like a thread of thought, or a memory. The dynamic of lines changes direction, evokes a sense of movement, like a dance guided by breath, body, memory and chance. Drawing lines, is like writing, in a language that can only be understood through an inner life of emotions.

I often think about the ground I stand on, the soil as a surface that holds history. I am drawn to ideas of archaeology and artifacts, to the invisible layers beneath us that shape the present. My background informs this exploration; growing up in Poland, a land of fairy tales mixed with stories of heroism, survival, endurance, and courage, shaped my way of seeing. In Poland, I learned cursive through calligraphy with pen and ink, I learned tapestry weaving from my mother. These experiences become visible in my process. The vertical warp and horizontal weft of weaving taught me to see structure as both memory and matter, layers building like strata of the earth, storing and transforming ideas and experiences.