NAU NUA: IZABELA OŁDAK

Mysterious spirals

Izabela Ołdak is a visual artist but mainly she is a free spirit that has decided to explore the mysterious spiral of existence in order to find her place in the universe and learn from all its connections. Let’s read her own words about her career, her artwork and her life experience.

My name is Izabela Ołdak. I was born in Rybnik, Poland in 1982. I am a visual artist and art curator. I received MFA at the Dutch Art Institute, ArtEZ in Enschede, the Netherlands (2008-2010) and MA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan in Poland (2002-2007). I express myself in various media like: painting, performing, site-specific installations, public and media art. My work combine exquisite craftsmanship with conceptual and spiritual inquiries inspired by nature, history of particular place, mythology, magic, folklore, dreams and patterns. I also work as a freelance curator collaborating with Bielska Gallery BWA in Bielsko-Biała in Poland where I initiated and curate a “Beyond Time” Artist-in-Residence program, organized by the gallery since 2011. I am also curating exhibitions, workshops, outdoor art, giving lectures and presentations. I have been awarded with several scholarships and participated in many solo and group exhibitions, Artist-in-Residence programs, workshops and lecture presentations in Poland and abroad (in Australia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, India, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and in the USA).

What’s your vision of the life experience?

It is a very hard question because I am still wondering about life and our purpose in it. I am looking for patterns, fractals, possibilities of our consciousness and our body. I see life as a big web of connections, a chain of actions and reactions, where I can take any role possible to have largest scale of experiences and information. And still life is just a mystery to me.

Merkaba, acrylic on canvas, 70x70cm, 2015

What role plays the artistic creativity in your life?

I often say: “I live to create, I create to live.” Art (as creation) is so firmly woven into my life that I can say that it means everything. It directed my path, my education and occupation; it is constantly forming my identity, influencing my daily life, my network and social role. I express myself through art. I think and perceive reality through my artistic sensitivity and background. Therefore art is to me the way of living, developing and progressing in every level: physical one, emotional, mental and spiritual.

Izabela Oldak 's Yurt studio

Your work is very linked to nature. What effect do you think the artificial world we have created around us has in our lives?

For bigger part of my life I was a nomad, so I had the luck to experience all forms of living, In the cities, metropolises, small towns, in the villages, forests etc. From all I need to say that living in the nature or in calm surroundings, working in the field with plants, or animals is like a balm to my body and mind. It is bringing back the pure sense of existence which can be seen in the simplest tasks. It brought back the sense of observation and contemplation, calmness and also delights of the beauty of the nature. The paradox is that hard work in the farm can give you more energy and satisfaction than sitting in the office, in a front of the laptop, or even the canvas. The earth, the nature is really calming us and we are inseparable part of it. It is like with the loved one, you want to be as close as you can and as long as possible.

The world we live in has been highly desacralized. The present-day economic and ecological crises, as well as spiritual deprivation are all the result of this authoritarian attitude towards Nature: lack of respect for it and no meaningful relationship with its living creatures. This creates a lot of suffering and misery, anger and wars.

In the Arms of Gaia

There is a lot of research of ancient cultures and their rituals in your work. Why have you decided to explore all these old traditions and what have you obtained from them?

With knowledge of the past comes understanding of the present. In order to discover the essence of creation and the primal role of an artist, I found it necessary to go back to its roots, which I see in transcendental experiences and magic.

In prehistoric times human life was connected to the natural environment. At that time the Arts were considered spiritual, magical, a secret language used in many rituals and rites. It has been associated with the exploration of the soul and the secrets of Nature, it was the beginning of taming the world, and to personalize and spiritualize the human as an individual.

Exploration of this subject leaded me to spiritual development through art, not only by creating it, but becoming art itself in performances which took the form of rituals and symbolic actions. Further such experiences gave me unbelievable power to transcend my mind, and to go beyond my limits. It served as a source of mental therapy and inner integration. It helped me to face my traumas and transform them in the art form.

It total helped me to be a better human, to be connected to my ancestors, to the line of art making to serve the higher purpose and to develop in every level.

Sources of Knowledge, video-installation, Ptapty, Poznań, Poland. 2014

Przywoływanie duchów (Recalling spirits) is a performance by Izabela Ołdak released in Węgierska-Górka in 2015 which was a New Year's ritual in which through various activities like dance and play she wanted to attract favorable beings asking for the prosperity for the new year. Performed by Izabela accompained by her niece Julia Wozniak.

Spiral is a recurrent symbol in your work, could you explain me why?

The spiral is my personal symbol of power, a filter and an amulet. It is considered as the essence of all things, a symbol of protection, regularity, time and secrecy. It is the only perfect geometric form that occurs in nature (Nautilus shell, sunflower, pineapple) - and therefore represents the mathematical order of Nature.

The spiral is also a symbol that protects against Chaos. According to the Buryatian shaman I meet when I was in an Olchon Island in the Baikal lake in Siberia, who had this symbol painted on his drum- the spiral symbolized the first form, through which from the Chaos emerged an Order.

It is such powerful vortex that could absorb and create enormous power and amount of energy. Therefore I use it so often.

Golden passion
diptych, acrylic on raw canvas, 175x 170cm, 2009
© Izabela Ołdak

What do you think about our attitude in front of death?

Youth is wanted and promoted; death is treated like it is not going to happen to us. Like it is some far away nightmare good for horror movies.

I did not want to think about it seriously myself until I had an accident which put me near death that I have ever been in my life. Since that time I started a deep research to learn more about the topic. I was totally disappointed because I could not found really deep research regarding it in my surroundings and culture. The best conclusions and detailed description about the process of dying, the death and after life I found only in Tibetan Buddhism tradition ( I truly recommend “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying”, written by Sogyal Rinpoche in 1992) The influence of this culture I found in every researcher on this subject like: Elisabeth Kübler – Ross, Margot Grey, Raymond Moody or Kenneth Ring (mainly American psychologists and psychiatrists).

When I started to talk about it with my friends or family they were all very shocked because as I heard I am too young to even think of the death. Sometimes it came to such extend that people don’t want to talk about it because this may call the Death.

There are not only superstitions, or the inability to commercialise death on the way.. I think that the biggest obstacle is the fear from death. The fear from the unknown and from the end of our existence. The psychologists say that this is the most profound fear, underlying all other traumas. No wonder that we don’t want to even hear about it…

Have you found many answers in your creative process or only more questions?

Both. One answer creates more questions, this make me to research more and more, get new answers, test them and have new questions. This is never-ending process of learning, exploring and growing.

Izabela Ołdak, Birth of the first Shaman
cast: Paweł Matyszewski and Ivana Ranisavljević
performance in Ećka in Serbia, 28 June 2011.

In the arms of Gaia
Created by Izabela Ołdak
Images selection here

An interview by Juan Carlos Romero
All works by Izabela Ołdak
All images courtesy of and owned by Izabela Ołdak

Izabela Ołdak artwork website

www.izabelaoldak.com

Photo courtesy of Izabela Ołdak