INTERVIEW with Artist ANNA EWA MIARCZYNSKA

She is mysterious and expressive as much as her art. She is very approachable. To have a conversation with her is easy, but to really understand what she is trying to say and express, is not for everyone’s aptitude.
Anna Ewa Miarczynska is a Polish artist born and raised in Warsaw, Poland. Her artwork is spread around the world in various ways. She paints, she draws, she goes deep within the core of her being to deliver the message about you in a manner least expected to you, and she enjoys every single moment of it.
I have met Anna Ewa Miarczynska sometime in London during one of her Art exhibitions in June 2010. I immediately became mesmerised with her art, with her persona and her view to life so much so I felt inspired to further continue our communication…

Your Drawings and Paintings are spiritually deep and soulful. Where does your spirituality and certain view to Life come from?

I remember a scene from my childhood: vacation time, a bonfire at night, people… I walk away; I lie down on the ground and stare at the starry sky. I try to penetrate the darkness, endless space and all the secrets they might conceal. I want to reach these stars, the planets, meet the beings that inhabit them and maybe myself… I am a sparkle flashed for a moment or a tiny speck of dust, suspended in the endless space between the past and the future, but who I was before I was born, what or who will I be after I die – I don’t know. I might disappear and so will my consciousness. And then I screamed yet no sound was heard. I was full of rebellious feelings, feelings of unfairness – that I will never get to know „What This Is All About” and that I will not reach all corners of the universe. I questioned if my life has emerged for a split moment only for me to see only a fraction of all this, to be teased.

Then I started growing, maturing… I was in a hurry most of the time and so I looked at the sky less often. My questions hid somewhere in my pockets, but my „scream” from the childhood must have been ear-splitting, some beings in the universe must have heard it, they waited for the right moment to appear in my life and remind me of My Big Question… Or maybe they were there beside me all the time and waited for the right moment for Me to be ready to hear the answers (because they cannot interfere with life and development of any being). And it turned out that it is a Beginning, that there is no end, there is always something more… But the most important thing for now is that I can get an answer to every question, that the answer is in me and I can hear it when I am ready for it – especially when I do not question, deny or disagree.

„If we do not know something, it’s because we Don’t Want To Know”.

I mean we are all spiritual beings (or maybe just one huge being?), who experience matter in infinite number of ways. And that’s OK, that’s Diversity. And still we have the same questions, hidden inside of us, shallow or deep and we look into them when the time is right for us and for different reasons. They say The Consciousness has it way round to everyone.

Visions that you have and try to express in your artwork are very powerful and eye catching. Is it something that happens to you naturally or is it just a pure imagination?

I was dwelling on the word „imagination”… What is the imagination? They say a man cannot imagine anything new to him/her – only perceives what already exists somewhere, „Everything Has Already Happened”. What is an image that we see when our eyelids are closed or where is this image from? Maybe we should ask quantum physicists.

It’s different with my visions. For example, I look at an object, a tree, a flower, a person or a part of a picture and at the same time I can see the rest of this phenomenon – it’s continuation, a different side of it, another context, another aspect. There are days, periods when pictures crowd into my head by themselves. The stronger, the more focused I am on painting, especially when other things don’t distract me. For example, when I was painting the series „The Parallel Worlds”, one picture spontaneously followed another – they were all 3D, full of motion, changing colours and shapes. I felt great peace and power, as if I were plugged into something. I made rough sketches to remember characteristic moments, and painting them later I had trouble deciding which colour to choose, which moment, which movement to trap.

At that time I thought it was an ability to see ‘the other’ worlds. Later I learnt that the things I saw were personal images – aspects – information or hints regarding certain persons (or a group of people). It was like this with all ‘my’ paintings, no matter whether they were painted to order or out of my own impulse. Sometimes a picture is ordered for a person whom I know nothing about, without any special requests. In a quick flash, which comes immediately or after a week, usually after waking up in the morning, when the mind is still empty, I can see a picture and later, during a conversation I learn that that’s „IT”. Two needs meet here. Someone needs to find/have „his or her” own picture. I need to „receive” it and paint.

You said that you received pictures in 3D. How is that possible? Could you expand on this please?

The easiest is the comparison to the images seen in a dream or during the meditation. They are sometimes more or sometimes less realistic, precise, often very elusive, disappearing from the memory very fast – not all of them are possible to be put on a flat piece of paper.
I evoke them and before painting, I frequently see the image on my mind – but again not always.

Also, by reading your words I feel as if you have some psychic ability, which you express through painting and drawing. Do you think you could relate to my words?

When somebody is into something for a long time and is often focused on it, a specific net of the neurons arise in his brain. Thanks to this net he sees, knows and touches the subject much deeper than others. Experienced physician will diagnose before he even sees the tests results, a fighter will predict the enemy’s move and driver will slow down sensing the danger on the road in the due time…

At the same time (as I mentioned before) everybody according to his need has a possibility of receiving the answer for himself, for this particular moment.

Maybe I will exemplify how this works for me.

I received an order for a picture for my friend’s father. I didn’t know him and I didn’t know anything about him, except for this, that he wanted to back out not only of his carrier (he was keeping a business) but also of his own life. He was lasting in suspension…

The picture, a gift from his daughter, was supposed to be an impulse for him for making a decision. I didn’t have any idea, how was it supposed to look like. I was talking to myself that I need to know what to paint – that I need to See It. On my mind there was only emptiness. When I woke up – more or less after a week – between the dream and reality I saw a horse. As a matter of fact, I saw a big, horse’s crupper, filling almost all the area of the painting and pervasive countryside landscapes – above it, under it and inside it.

Therefore I still distrusted myself, and so I told my friend about this “vision”. She burst into laughter telling me, that her father love countryside and fat country horses. He was born and growing up in the country. He was riding a horse like this to school every day. In his memories it was the happiest period of his life.

So I painted the horse’s crupper. The father of my friend was delighted with the picture. His joy of life came back. He is still keeping his business (after two years since getting a painting). Of course there is no proof, that it was caused by a painted piece of canvas, but it could be the one piece of the whole puzzle…

It is a fact that space, objects, pictures surrounding us has tremendous influence on our conscious and subconscious thoughts, as well as our feelings, mood and state of mind.

So I shall include this picture together with your interview for the readers to view. What do you think they will see in it?

I don’t know. I would be eager to know though… Many of my different paintings I got to know from other people’s feedback more than from myself.

We belong to one family which is Mankind; we have numbers of common “programs” – so most likely everybody will catch a sight of a horse. But within this family we differ, we are individuals so everybody can have distinct association, can “read off” the paintings in other way – read off oneself in different manner. Everything has infinite number of aspects. While painting I have some kind of a personal thought, but I wouldn’t like to delimit interpretations. By this reason I am unwilling to give the titles and I am not attached to them. Everybody can give his own title. I am curious about the reaction – thoughts, others people stories. It enriches paintings in new contents – different aspects, they “saturate” with them and it seems that they have stronger effect, attract more attention…

In other words, we could say it is equal to listening to your intuition. All visions arise from that place of being when one listens to his soul.

We touch places, which are hard to describe with words – that are not precise, they only give the direction, maybe it is an intuition (even though there are ups and downs with my intuition in everyday life), maybe penetrating somebody’s needs. Probably I have to touch the place inside of myself to be able to read-off this other person’s need of the soul – because we all are connected on some deeper level. I don’t need to know how it works. What is important that It does work.

Do you get to participate in many art related exhibition, displays, presentations? Do you and your work get to travel the world?

I have been painting for many years. I sell pictures. Many of them get down abroad to different countries. I have had exhibitions in Poland (quite many of them) and last summer in London. Actually I was urged on every one of them – I don’t want to use word “forced”. I was afraid of people, effort, confusion. And then I stopped being afraid of people, but I still prefer sitting alone in my studio, trying to create, to end up something and despite the fact that it’s really boring I am not really happy when something is distracting me.

On the other hand I know that different impulses, changes, contacts with people are necessary. This is why I am using propositions, favourable circumstances to make a move, change…

Sometimes I was taking part in painting in an open-air. I also eagerly paint on the walls. There are already several interiors in Poland, Norway and Netherlands, where I left the marks of my paintbrushes.

What does your art represent, Anna?

I can paint any subject. I don’t feel being limited in my abilities. It is usually matter of the client’s order. But what can be said is that the way I represent this topic is “mine”, it is a reflection of me.

There is one method which spreads very vast – Art-therapy, which helps to throw out e.g. on a paper or canvas, a different traumas, fears, suppress aggression, black thoughts often unconscious – out of yourself.

It is a good method for abreaction, identification of yourself, but putting into a frame and hanging on the wall the painting created that way seem such a bad idea. It is desirable that such painting should be repainted, destroyed or at least hidden somewhere deep (alternately it can be given to the Museum). I am not talking about the artistic side here. Painting can be perfect, moving, full of emotions, but it is worth to contemplate here why do we actually like something… Do we want to intensify these particular emotions or to consolidate them?

I feel it is important to be aware of that while arranging your place, space.

There are many artists, who create disturbing, simply aggressive, brutal visions saying that they want to put the attention on them, at some kind of a problem, drama, they tell that it is a protest against war and so on… Of course, everybody has right to presume that thanks to the “fight for peace” on the Earth, the peace will set in.

I have a right to see it in a different way. I can only find, create a “peace” inside myself. If we all do it, then there will be peace. Every person (using the simplification) has his “bright” and “dark” sides. About the “dark” side I mentioned a little before speaking about Art-therapy.

For example, painting someone’s portrait I concentrate myself on this person’s “bright” side. I ask a question how this painting is suppose to look like and I wait for an answer. I assume portrait will probably hang on this person’s wall and that he will be looking at it from time to time or maybe even often. I know the cases, where people were converging to their portraits in relatively short period of time. A portrait can affect particularly strong. When I create something for others it is always a responsibility.

This is why I always want to find, enhance, to emphasize this most beautiful side of a person. I do not correct the features of the face, I focus only on this qualities that this person (her/his soul) wishes intensify.

Are there any near future exhibitions planned for your art anywhere in the world?

I’m focusing now on the current orders (illustrations, wall paintings, portraits, conservations). I haven’t had time for my own paintings last days, but I know that when I will create them, it will be work done without a definite reason.

I do my best to not plan anything because plans usually never happen as planned (they narrow down the possibilities – they are like building a gate on a desert). Neither I have the desire to make exhibitions – I already mentioned that, but if such need will appear and possibilities, then it’s something different, I will most likely won’t decline, and of course you will probably hear from me.

Tell me, what would you say to the Beginner who is just about to embark on the journey of self-discovery through the means of art? What would be your advice or wisdom?

Hmm…it’s a book-size subject.

Painting, drawing… Every form of creation – to be a creation – has to be bringing joy. And this cannot be lost. But when you start to perform something as your everyday job, it becomes easy to lose the joy of spontaneity. Routine starts to appear, as well as boredom, tiredness, dependency on other people and their judgments.

It’s much easier when it is a hobby… But you have to be careful to not race with anybody, don’t compare yourself to others, do not try to be original, better by brute force… it’s Most Important – to create for yourself, to be focused on your own. You can peek how others are doing that – to learn diverse techniques to discover the one most suitable for you. Or create you own… Own technique or so called “style” it’s not a goal itself – it’s a side effect of an “experimenting game”. Some people think they have lack of abilities or traits like persistence, patience, sensitivity, ability to concentrate, observe or so called imagination, but thanks to creative activities we can find them in ourselves, to develop them and many others.

But the real core of it is the transmission of those creative activities for our whole life. Every activity, every job can transfigure, become a form of an art: art of cooking, art of cleaning, art of bringing up children, etc. – the art of living.

It’s the readiness for constant changes, forgetting what you know in order to make a new discovery in the exact moment of Now (to react differently than usually, to do a routine action in a different way against all the habits). It’s the escape over our own, tight frames – habits, opinions we are stuck on. We are something “much, much more” than we can only imagine.

This is what I call – self-discovery.

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