Krzysztof (Eng. Christopher) ลlachciak, born in 1983, Poznaล, Poland, is an Artist photographer and a member of The Association of Polish Art Photographers. He graduated from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznaล with masters degree in Korean Studies and in Poznaล University of Economics he did postgraduate studies in the field of Business to Business Marketing with thesis on advertising photography.
From 2008 he runs his own commercial photography studio. From 2011 until 2016, on the invitation of profesor Wลodzimierz Wลoszkiewicz, he conducted practical lessons of photography and lectures of composition for the Architecture Department’s students at the Poznaล University of Technology.
From 2013 until 2016 he ran the photography section of the Artistic Science Club. At present he works for promoting artistic photography as a member of the board of The Association of Polish Art Photographers, Greater-Poland region. He also conducts his workshops and open-air events. Until now he has shown his works at more than 40 collective and solo exhibitions as well as other artistic events.
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Hi Krzysztof, could you tell our readers a little bit about who you are?
Hello! My name is Chris, and I am a photographer, sometimes an artist photographer. I think that is the best line to describe me ๐
My everyday routine is commercial photography, I work with various companies helping them to get their products and services to the people they want. I live about 20 kilometers from Poznaล, Poland, in quiet surroundings, close to nature, without television, with my wife and a dog. Occasionally, when I must, I become an artist. This is a time of my personal therapy, getting away from the world and closing my dilemmas. Time when I work mostly with my thoughts and eventually conceive some pictures.
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Tell us about your art style or process.
From my point of view neither my process nor my art style are based on technical, or even visual aspects. I sometimes work with a medium format analog film, sometimes with a digital camera, sometimes with pinholes, I light-paint, use multi exposure, manually edit or even destroy negatives, and I use Photoshop to achieve effects of digitally edited photographs.
As a commercial photographer I am used to choosing the most appropriate means to achieve my goals. This is also the case when I work on my artistic projects and it all starts with fascination, dilemma or a problem. Then comes ideas how to put them into pictures and these pictures, when finished, tend to close the case of this fascination, problem or dilemma. After that I feel more conciliated with the world. So my artistic creation is more like spiritual experience.
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You are a member of the board of The Association of Polish Art Photographers. How do you promote artistic photography?
I am a member of the board of The Association of Polish Art Photographers, Greater-Poland region to be exact. We are actually experimenting with means of promoting artistic photography right now. The key to our way of thinking is realizing that photography is not a monolith. There are a lot of completely different ways of doing artistic photography.
As you probably know, documentary and conceptual photographers are on the top nowadays, but they are not the only ones there. Also, every photographer is different and probably needs different ways of promotion. So our philosophy is not to promote one of the trends but to provide opportunities for our members to promote themselves on their own terms. We also try to show the public the diversity of trends in photography by organizing exhibitions and helping in publishing photography books, and while doing so, we try to embrace every trend our members represent. We also work online, I personally run the website, and the Facebook page of our region: http://zpafpoznan.pl
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Where does your inspiration come from?
I suppose it all comes from carving my views on the world. The key factor is probably freedom. When I feel something or someone distorts my freedom, I turn around. I read a lot about science, history, religion. I like to listen to various opinions, YouTube is very helpful here, and which is not without significance, I am an atheist, so a natural septic.
From a visual point of view I do not have any specific inspirations and I sometimes, mostly during exhibitions, I find out that some of my pictures resemble historic art, which is never my intention. Having said that I must admit I admire works of subjective artist photographers, and I consider myself to be influenced by their work a lot. I am also influenced by paintings. Mostly because I evolved as an artist surrounded by painters and sculptures.
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Tell us about other artists/role-models or books that played a key role on your artistic journey.
Having a role-model is very dangerous. If you like to be like someone else, it means that you are in some way copying them, making the same mistakes, you’re susceptible to manipulation, and moreover you are not fully independent.
So there are photographers whose body of works I admire, and that would be mostly Polish artists: Stanisลaw Woล, Edward Hartwig, Zdzisลaw Beksiลski, and the one you might have heard of: Bronisลaw Schlabs. From let’s say World history of art: Minor White, Otto Steinert, Helmut Newton for sure and some still life works by Edward Weston.
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You also conduct workshops and open-air events. Could you tell us something about this?
Sure. A couple of times a year I am asked to conduct workshops. They mostly explore my technical abilities, which are a part of my commercial photography, but sometimes I am invited to talk about my artistic practice.
I am a former lecturer, I worked at Poznaล University of Technology, Architecture Department, where I ran an artistic science club for students interested in photography and I have conducted practical lessons and lectures of composition. So, I am quite used to talking to people, and I enjoy it.
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How did you learn/acquire your technique?
I am self-taught photographer, so I learn everything by experimenting and reading books on a subject, sometimes using YouTube tutorials. But that’s it. I have no formal education neither in arts or in photography.
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How has art impacted your life?
On an everyday basis it is shaped on how I perceive creativity. When someone calls a saturated landscape, or wedding reportage an art, I say โyeah rightโ, ironically of course. Art also gives me opportunity to blow off some existential steam. In a similar way that church gives it to it’s believers I suppose…but in my case the rules are mine.
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Tell us a bit about your last work.
My last work was conceived in a little different way. This time it all started with music. I have found a band which plays music and I thought it would work perfectly with some of my works. So I decided to offer a collaboration, and they agreed. They were working on a new album, so it was also an opportunity to do something together.
I did a cover photo session for them with one of my favorite models. They chose a picture, I prepared it, and in the album book they used my works from โCosmic Perspectiveโ series. So the cooperation was very successful. I later stated on my Facebook, that it was โa step towards immortalityโ. However, as I worked with a post production of the cover photo, I realized that this is a good start for something I had always wondered about, and I had been always interested in. Moreover, it is a topic which is included in a concept of this album – future of technology and humanity.
That’s how โPost Sapiensโ series came to be, and the album which triggered it is titled โPost Sapiens 101โ by Abstrakt Band. I highly recommend their music. Its awesome!
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What is your current WIP?
I am currently in a relaxed mode and don’t have any WIP right now.
What does the future look like for you and your art?
In the long term โ I just don’t know. In a short term โ I am working towards a big solo show in the city of Poznaล which I plan for the first part of 2020. There is a lot to do, and a lot of money to gather for it. And I will be hosting, live, Abstrakt during a reception party. There is also a plan for an album or some kind of a listen-book with my works and Abstrakt’s music.
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Any words of advice to aspiring artists?
Make your own decisions. Be independent, be yourselves. It needs some courage, and it may make you sometimes feel miserable, but if it works, it really works.
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Your photography is absolutely stunning! Which project has been the most difficult or satisfying?
Thanks. The most difficult was definitely โMaraโ. It took me 2 years to finish and I couldn’t get rid of it out my head during that time. It’s also the most successful series of mine. It has been exhibited 7 times in the most prestigious galleries, that my works have ever been exhibited. So in that perspective it’s also the most satisfying. But personally for me, to watch and to be proud of the achieved effect is โCosmic Perspectiveโ. It’s quite difficult for viewers, but, you know โ the Universe is not there to satisfy your aesthetics, nor the art is.
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Would you like to share any more information with our readers?
Javier Casanueva was born in Avila the 17th April of 1995. He graduated in Fine Arts at Salamancaยดs University. That degree allowed him to study the Painting Master of the Basque Country University, Bilbao and later to continue studying his PHD.
His first exhibition was in Avila, at the Jose Hierroยดs exhibition hall, in the Episcopio, when Javier was 21. Commemorating that exhibition the book โShapelessโ was published. In that book, Javier collaborated with the poet Josรฉ Marรญa Muรฑoz Quirรณs, which lead to a close friendship. They have since collaborated on many other occasions in the magazine called “El Cobayaโ and in other publications, like the “2017 Poetic Round of รvilaโ.
Since the first exhibition, Javier Casanueva has done three more solo exhibitions in different cities, like Vitoria and Pontevedra, and has participated in some collective shows, like the Painting Biennial of Ourense or โCaminos y duendesโ – an exhibition where other participants included Jesรบs Mari Lazkano, Joseba Eskubi and Genoveva Linaza, to name a few.
Recently, Javier has worked as an Invited Artist at the Bodin KDA Skole, Bodo, Norway; where he taught a Creative Painting Workshop and made a benefit auction with his painting to assist the center with their humanitarian work.
Beltza 195x162cm
Hi Javier, could you tell our readers a little bit about who you are?
Well, I am Javier Casanueva. I was born in รvila, a small city close to Madrid, Spain. Since I was a child I have been always interested in drawing, painting and anything I could do with my hands; so I studied the Art Degree at Salamancaยดs University.
Currently I live in Bilbao, where Iยดm doing my PHD studies that I combine with my exhibitions and art production.
Colorida art gallery
Tell us about your art style or process.
I started painting landscapes, so thereยดs where everything started. If you look at my first series, Shapeless and BrokenShapes, you will find abstractions that are almost landscapes. After that I started to go deeper in meta-painting, I mean, gestures, textures and composition, so I took some distance with the nature. Now I am more into pure abstraction, close to minimalism.
About the process, I paint in an impulsive way. I usually start and finish pictures without pauses, just observing the changes that appear in the surface of the canvas and working on them. Then I reach a point when I feel is finished.
Shapeless 1. 100×80, oil on canvas
You have collaborated with the poet Josรฉ Marรญa Muรฑoz Quirรณs for the book โShapelessโ. Could you share this experience with us?
Josรฉ Marรญa was my teacher when I was 14. He is an important poet here in Spain and I have always admired him. When I was preparing my first exhibition, I invited him to my studio, and we decided to make a book with his poems and my pictures. The experience was great because we shared most of the process and pieces, fitting and creating new things.
It was so good that for my second exhibition at รvila, โLa Pompa Negraโ (The black bubble), we decided to make another book, โblack and whiteโ, where you can find one of my texts talking about painting, pictures, drawings and of course Josรฉยดs poems.
Quiรก, 50x70cm, Oil on canvas
We have also collaborated in different art magazines and we are preparing a big project for the 100 years from Miguel Delibes birth. Collaborating with him is always great, I learn a lot and have fun also.
Where does your inspiration come from?
I understand inspiration like a part of the work. I remember a phrase from Pablo Picasso, who said: โInspiration comes, but it must catch you workingโ. My inspiration comes from the own process of painting.
Shapeless 08, 100x100cm, Oil on canvas
Tell us about other artists/role-models or books that played a key role on your artistic journey.
I have a lot of reference artists, from the great artist like Rothko to teachers I had at the University, like Joseba Eskubi. One artist who changed my way of seeing art and image was Josรฉ Ramรณn Amondarain. Blinky Palermo is a great artist to look at too.
Talking about books and theory; Antonio Machado and his writings about intra-time are a pillar of my thinking. Gilles Deleuze has also great books about painting. Ortega y Gasset has an essay talking about Diego Velรกzquez that has also impacted me. There is a lot of great books I have read for my PHD, I couldnโt choose just a few of them.
cubes. 100x450cm mixed media on canvas
Javier, you have worked as an invited Artist at the Bodin KDA Skole, Bodo – Norway, teaching a Creative Painting Workshop? Could you tell us something about this?
Yes. This was something amazing, definitely one of my best experiences. All started when I went to Norway with my family to visit a friend who lives there. On that trip I visited the Bodin KDA Skole and the quality of Norwegian education surprised me, so I started to talk with the school to plan the workshop. I based the classes on the creative process of the students and we made a little exhibition with the works at the school. In addition, I made a painting for the school in order to do a benefit auction. I hope to go back again soon, but my PHD also takes up a lot of my time.
Sandpapers, 10x15cm, Mixed media on sandpaper
How did you learn/acquire your technique?
I started painting and drawing classes when I was five or six years old in a small academy. When I was 11, I started to go to the รvilaยดs Autonomic Art School, where my three teachers taught me a lot. Later with the Art Degree and with a lot of practice I learnt the rest.
How has art impacted your life?
Art changes any life. I am thinking about my series, my concepts and looking for more and more, all day . I think that art gives you a different point of view and it is a job totally different to any other. I canโt explain it, but other artists will tell you the same.
Shipshapes 002, Mixed media on canvas, 225x150cm
Tell us a bit about your last work.
My last finished work is Beltza. Well, I want to continue with it, but trough sculpture. Beltza means black in Basque. I was looking for the painting that is not image at all. The purest abstraction trying to find a way to reconnect with the primitivism of the human being, investigating about painting as a human fact.
Beltza, 30x30cm, รleo sobre lienzo
What is your current WIP?
As I said, I am working with Josรฉ Marรญa Muรฑoz Quirรณs for the 100 years from Delibes birth. Iยดm going back to landscape through the humanism and intimism of the author. We are doing a reflection about Delibes work using painting, drawing and poems. You will see more soon, at this moment I only can say that it will be a book and two exhibitions, but we are talking with the promoters and still working on it.
Exposiciรณn Galerรญa Musart, Pontevedra
What does the future look like for you and your art?
My closer personal project is the thesis. I want to finish my PHD because I love to teach and I would like to be a University Teacher in the future. For my art, I am preparing two exhibitions for the Delibes projects and I am also investigating with sculpture and installation. It is difficult to imagine a far future because I work on it daily and changes are very progressive.
BrokenShapes 9, 100x81cm, Oil on canvas
Any words of advice to aspiring artists?
My first advice is to be patient. Art is something really complex and needs lot of time to develop the skills and the knowledge that it requires. But being patient also means to be a hard worker; you need to be focused and accept critique.
My second advice is to enjoy. Art is a marvelous world, donโt miss the process looking at the goal.
BrokenShapes 2, 100x81cm, Oil on canvas
Your art is amazing! Which project has been the most difficult or satisfying?
Beltza. It was hard to find a balance between esthetic and using black with no mixture, but it was also the most satisfying.
Would you like to share any more information with our readers?
Just tell them to keep an eye on this year 2020. Great things are coming on the projects.
Fragmented paintings, 50x70cm, Mixed media on paper
Chriselda Barretto 