Hanna Ilczyszyn
I paint portraits, animals, plants and landscapes. I am interested in the interaction between living creatures and their surroundings.
My work tends to be intuitive. I paint fast. I usually think about my next work for a while, but then the execution is always rather quick. I believe this allows me to follow my intuition and paint in a more expressive way. Also, I enjoy the little imperfections resulting from such process: my goal is to capture a feeling, rather than a perfect image. I want my work to be a constant quest for harmony, a permanent pursuit of balance.
When I paint, I usually think of a perfectly peaceful moment, I imagine myself in a field, alone. It’s just before dusk, when the sun slowly goes down and the last rays of light kiss the ground. There is a certain stillness at this time of the day and a beautiful light. You know it will get dark soon, so you should probably go home soon, but you also want this moment to last. I think the feeling of that precise moment, hanging between light and darkness, is something I try to convey with my work. Similar to the impression of waking up from a very vivid dream, when we are still figuring out whether we are still asleep or already awake, and somehow the unconscious story of our dream still lives inside us almost surreal.
In all this, I value humor as a tool to interpret life. In my canvasses and drawings I therefore mix grotesque figures, bold lines and colors, to add a humorous touch.