A way of living
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| Malinowska Julita photo by Czeslaw Czaplinski |
Julita
Malinowska was born in a small Polish town called Otwock on the right bank of
Vistula. Otwock is home to a unique architectural style called Swidermajer developed
in late 19th and early 20th century. She studied in the Art Department of the
Maria Curie-Slodowska in Lublin from 1999 to 2000, and then in the painting department
of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow until 2005, having also received a Sokrates/Erasmus
scholarship in 2003 for the Wolverhampton University in the UK. Graduated
(MA degree) from the Painting Department in 2005 with distinction, from the
studio of Prof. Andrzej Bednarczyk and recently PhD degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. She has exhibited her work around
the world in twenty one solo exhibitions and many important art fairs. Her art
is full of mystery without leaving reality behind but always letting some space
to her imaginary, her thoughts, her wishes and fears, but there’s also space
for the mind of the viewer because her work can also be sawn as a canvas for
the creativity of the viewer due to the almost empty spaces around the
characters she creates. As she says, her art shows “realistic figures, but
not realistic compositions”. Welcome to the artistic world of Julita Malinowska.
What’s art
for you?
It's the way of living.
And why did
you choose art as a way of living?
Because at the time when I was choosing where
to focus my energy, the most joyful thing I was doing was drawing and painting.
I met also wonderful people. I felt it can be destiny, way of living,
development in many ways, doing something deeper in life. When I was really
choosing to try to be an artist when I graduated academy of fine art, it was
less "colourful". It was rather hard. Determination and promise to
myself: I will do my best to stand the hard beginning.
It was hard financially, but also it is very lonely
job to be a painter. But I felt it is my way.
So do you
think art is giving you all you expected from it?
It's an interested question. I was all the time
thinking that I give something to art (my paintings), never expected anything
back. I think I give more than get back.
So yes, art is giving me more than I expected...
But there are and there will be up and downs in work. So our relationship with
art is rather hard.
Art is it an
impulse or need of discovering yourself?
I would say it is need of discovering myself,
if I must choose. But most of all I treat it as a work. It is all the time with
me, and will be. It is changing the same way as I am changing. Constantly,
fluently. Work till the end. Way of living until the end. So in my paintings I
rather show my interests at that moment, what fascinated me the last time.
So through
your art do you try to express reality or to transform it?
Express my way of seeing reality.
No fantasy,
then. No dreams, no wishes...
So rather express transformed reality. Wait, wait,
because it is hard to put it in to words...
I imagine
since you use a visual art.
Painting is all the time somehow surrealistic-
not natural...
You mean
not realistic in the material sense, but realistic in the mind sense?
There are realistic figures, but not realistic
compositions. It is to like a puzzle. Same fantasy story to say my intuition, the
feeling I have about the world.
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| Photo by Carmen Spitznagel |
In your
paintings there is always a lot of mystery in spite of their realistic
inspiration. Where does that mystery come from? Is it your purpose to create
this mystery?
I thing paintings would be all the time the mystery.
So it is my aim. I like the most those paintings with the strong atmosphere.
Strength is
part of your character?
Yes, definitely.
Your
paintings feature bodies of all ages and sizes but the background is very often
lacking in details and monochrome, especially the most recent ones. What’s the
concept behind that choice?
I concentrate of the relations between figures.
And I wish there is nothing which distracts from it. I think the painting
should have enough (!), only the needed elements. The background is more to
build the atmosphere, to emphasize the bodies, distances between them, or to
make than closer.
Sometimes it is meaningful as a division of
space, between some people for example. Sometimes this division, it is a border
of big power, not under control of human being- represented by the sea.
It's true
that one experiences a bigger attention on the people on the painting and the
space sometimes it's felt as an isolation but others as a kind of spirituality
that link us with each other. Do you have a spiritual sense of life?
I am searching in this field since many years. I
was practising Tibetan Buddhism for over 4years. I was born in very catholic
home. Last time I start to be interested in shamanism. I am sure life has a real
spiritual sense.
So do you
think our western culture has made our body become more prison than a way to
liberate our spirit?
Yes, indeed. We -westerns- do many things not
to be connected with our spirit, and real emotions.
What's the
effect of that in our life?
Loneliness, depression, suicides...all bed
parts of personality: greed, selfishness...all this need to be extra the best,
the most beautiful. With no respect to the cycles of life.
Do you
consider yourself as a voyeur? What do you think about human attraction to voyeurism?
Yes, I am voyeur when I collect my materials. I
need it because I search for natural behaviours. It is laboratory situation. A human
attraction? It is a substitute of life...
From one side it is natural- we learn by
observation. But it is toll of control, nowadays (all the cameras, and scanning
us with the internet), and substitute for reality, for passive voyeur.
One of your
paintings interests me especially, it's called Passing away, from 2010. Could you explain me about it?
The one with elder ladies?
Yes.
I wanted to show the loneliness of dying
person. I chose one person, because anyway it is symbolic person. At fist there
is many, the father she goes there is less "her"/them, at the end
there is just single person. But it is not destructive, she is seeing something
which we (viewers of the paintings) cannot see...
What do you
feel when you think of death?
I like to use one figure, because it gets more
context. There’s more mystery... Like in the painting Family, 200x255- there
is a lonely girl lost searching the way between families. I feel mystery.
What are
your artistic references?
Hockney, Pierro della Francesca, Hopper, I love
all great art. Rembrandt, I like Last Judgments. "Realistic
fantasy".
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| Photo by Jacek Kozielski |
Are you
making your doctoral studies?
I finished. It was about voyeurism, starting
point was me as a voyeur- as I described you-when collecting materials. So I
have my PhD.
Could you
explain me a dream?
It is very hard to say this. But I am having
nightmares, since I graduated Academy... My best dreams are those when I fly.
It is so natural. I came back to this state in my dreams, and I remember how I
was doing it before, at the dreams... I have the impression that I learn from
someone how to fly. It is wonderful to be so light... (in a material and a non-material
sense). It is light, bright and beautiful... I wish I will have this state
tonight.
Julita Malinowska | A selection of works here
An interview by Juan Carlos Romero
Julita Malinowska website www.julitamalinowska.com
Photos by Czeslaw Czaplinski, Jacek Kozielski and Carmen Spitznagel courtesy of Julita Malinowska
All rights reserved