Polar Bear Print

This painting is part of the series 'Computer Views". The series (it consists of six paintings: Ice, Mars, Field, Polar Bear, Authorization Required and Girl, oil on canvas, sizes between 29 x 41 cm and 70 x 60 cm) is constructed around the tension between the mimetic look of the figurative elements depicted and the abstract forms of the computer dialogue boxes. The process of working on this series started twofold. On the one hand, it aimed to address formal questions regarding space in the two-dimensional surface of the canvas. By adding the computer dialogue boxes in the paintings, the surface separates into two levels of perception, one been the landscapes and the portrait of the girl, i. e. a realistic approach, and the other - an abstract shape of the computer dialogue box. The other direction of the creative process unfolded with my hope to contribute to the awareness of current ecological problems, which we all face – the melting of the polar ice caps and the overall global climate change. In this sense, the computer dialogue boxes appear in the paintings as signs of reality, saturated with images, especially on screens. Sometimes it seems as the screens show us a more ‘truthful’ reality than our own five senses in our daily life perceive. We see, hear and еxperience the worlds’ events through screens, we feel as we belong the world through the power of these images. Our own existential experience is deeply influenced by this perception. On the other hand, the world on our screens seems somehow unreal – it resembles some kind of computer-generated reality. Thus issues as fundamental as global warming seem far away as if they do not concern us.