Gosha Karpowicz grew up observing changes of light and colour in the forests, meadows, sky and the sea in the land of Poland. Her father was a professor of agriculture and her mother was an art and art history teacher. Karpowicz first came to painting as a biologist, a scientist, observing nature. She was fascinated by growth and decay, life and death, wanting to understand when things began, how they changed, and why they ended. She surrendered to books and microscopes until one day in the meadows she was so moved by the cool reds and the warm reds that she felt compelled to paint the scene. It was the only way she felt she could understand what was in front of her. Through her art education, she found an abstract expression which became the experiential science she was seeking, a more poetic way to examine the world and nature of her perceptions.
At a young age, she was compelled to leave her home country of Poland, then part of the Communist bloc, to live and paint in the United States, where freedom of expression was encouraged and respected. She graduated from Parsons School of Design in 1985 in New York City where she studied under Sean Scully. Gosha Karpowicz exhibited at Hopper House in Nyack, Equity Gallery, The Painting Center, and Anthroposophical Society in NYC amongst many others. Her paintings are in a collection of The Museum of Contemporary Art Elekrownia in Poland. She resides in New York City.
Self-taught or art school?
I graduated with an MFA in Painting from Parsons School of Design, in New York City, USA. Parsons was a result of my in-depth previous studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland. I am grateful to my many significant mentors, two of them being Janusz Petrykowski in Poland, and Sean Scully in NYC.
If you could own one work of art what would it be?
This is a hard question to answer. I might settle for early Piet Mondrian, J.W. Turner, or maybe one of the female portraits by Leonardo Da Vinci, with their eyes of equanimity.
How would you describe your style?
I am mostly interested in abstract, minimal, and colour field paintings, so I think my artwork might fit somewhere in this category.
Is narrative important within your work?
It is an impossible abstract idea to paint paintings about nothing, therefore, the narrative is important to me as a seed gives rise to a tree. Narrative is a beginning, an inner story. I believe we share many of “the same”, or similar life stories. In my process of painting, the narrative evolves and transforms into a new story picking up a life of its own. The less descriptive my paintings become, the more they become abstract and universal. It is an interesting paradox.
Who are your favourite artists and why?
I admire so many artists and different genres. I recently listened to a talk by Andy Goldsworthy, and I found that the way he spoke about his art and process was so close to my perceptions and understanding of what art is. I enjoy discovering an affinity with other artists.
What or who inspires your art?
I am inspired by my observations of colour transforming in landscapes. The welcoming embrace of the night and activities of colour in the daylight are often my simple and subtle meditations on painterly relationships.
Are there any recurring themes within your work and can you tell us about them?
I paint out of colour that lives in between light and darkness. Colours breathe and pulsate, they create relationships that illuminate new possibilities. At a young age, I was a scientist and an avid observer of nature. From looking under the microscope I shifted my studies to the vastness of landscapes, how the space of land and sky meet, the illusion of nonexistent in reality horizons, what is visible and what is hidden, veiled and disappearing, certainty and uncertainty, what is arising and becoming.
Where’s your studio and what’s it like?
My current studio is in New York City on the fifteenth floor of a modern building, with big windows facing east. Sometimes, I see the night sky slowly shedding its darkness and opening to light, and movement of colour.
Do you have any studio rituals?
I like to sit in front of my paintings in the morning and keep looking at them, contemplating what is the next step.
What are you working on currently?
I am definitely in the mode of blue and darkness. But, yellow is so tempting.
Where can we buy your art?
artinres.com artsper.com and from my studio.
What are your ambitions?
To discover something super meaningful through the art of painting, to make it available for others to see. Painting has two lives, one when being painted, the other when it is done and its independent life begins.
For more information, visit:
Insta: goshakarpowiczart
Website: www.GoshaKarpowiczArt.com
