Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Silence Awareness Existence program / FEBRUARY 2022
Krzysztof Figielski
Poland
kfigielski.art.pl/en
About
I am visual artist, designer and illustrator. From time to time
below the surface of everyday hustle and bustle, I manage
to discover a small secret and silence. I open myself to what
appears. I am an inner traveler. Art is for me a kind of journey
to sources. I feel the world extends both outside and within
us. By means of symbols and images I pass on the discovered
beauty and energy of life. I am inspired by cultures that stay
connected with the Earth, fairy tales and myths, symbolic
and surrealistic art, Jung’s psychology.
My HandBook
When I looked in the wardrobe in my room I saw a tiny sticker
there with the words “Answers are everywhere”. It was like
that. I started with looking around, sketching and reading.
A simple day and week schedule was a great help for me as
well as the presence of other residents and the wild snowy
nature in Hämeenkyrö. I found inspiration in the book “The
Thinking Hand“ by the finish architect and thinker Juhani
Pallasmaa. He emphasizes the value of the multi-sensory
approach to the creative process. His book is like a primer
not only to architecture and art, but life as well. After a period
of uncertainty I turned my sketchbook into “My Handbook”.
I started to watch my hands, listened to them, played with
them. It was like bringing my mind more into the hands and
body, establishing the tool-hand union. I was playing with
different tools and with the materiality of the paper. We
usually treat drawing and painting as just visual arts but
that is not the whole truth. Juhani Pallasmaa writes about
the tactile connection through the hand with imagination: “I
have also had chance to observe that the hand and the body
produce distinctly different ideas than the head”. Walking in
the woods is a multi-sensory experience and this can also be
the creative process. I would like to stay with this approach.