Anna Kolod

PAINTING IS THE THING OF THE MIND

... Thoughts, words, philosophical and poetic sources are significant inspiration for Anna Kolod.
The images she creates can always be understood as „images of thought.“ They give us food for thought, demand the mental and emotional dispute, but they ultimately deny the ground for sheltered thinking. They interrogate and question the common human image.

Undoubtedly, through these images one encounters an idiosyncratic, very personal cosmos, without touching the private sphere. It exposes a fundamental view of man, like a gesture to fathom hidden human abysses. At this point, I perceive her graphic and pictorial work as strictly related to the philosophical project.

In contrast to the philosophical questions, this exploration does not occur in the medium of language, but in the language of paint.

Elias Torra

(excerpt from the essay)

What is it about your studio space that inspires you?

My entangled mind trips there. The feeling of movement with explosions, the feeling of a real journey without leaving that cube.

What sounds, scents and sights do you encounter while in your studio?

Music is an entrance to the deeper experience of the world, it helps simply to melt with the work. Through the music, I can reach various, unrevealed emotions faster and exclude long hours of knocking on the wall of my mental memory. The rhythm of creative process involves automatically the pure plateau of silence, as a space, where the concentration is especially intense. There is something indescribably hunting and inhuman in silence, the great art works have an identical effect.

What is your favourite material to work with? How has your use of it evolved throughout your practice?

Favorite material to fight with: paint !

What themes do you pursue?

Painting is the thing of the mind. The rational picture of the world seems to be absolutely unrealistic to me, so here is the source of creation, from that embarrassment. The things appear as they are not quite supposed to appear. My objects of investigation are ambiguous poetry of human nature, figures and their irregular phenomenon, their real "shadow", their essence, they are my "abc" for the work-sentences/series. "The Animals" series are portraits of human beings, from which emerge their almost grotesque animality, chaotic primitiveness in contact with Dionysian innocence and with a profound unease of conscience.

What advice has had the biggest impact on your career?

"Imagination is nothing more than a gear wheel."-- and another artist extended this thought as follows: "Your eyes will be like reversed telescopes, the world moves away and everything grows smaller, people, streets, trees, but they do not lose their distinctness, they are condensed". Sweet terror of this machine...

If you could only have one piece of art in your life, what would it be?

A drawing. Perhaps Klee's drawing or my own drawing. I think, it should be something capturing only the first spark of the vision, if I should be staring that single piece all my life long. Very cruel perspective. Very very good question.

If you weren´t an artist, what would you be doing?

I could be also a great surgeon or a gardener. It should be just something ultimately near to the texture of life.

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