Once You Live and Once You Don’t

“Adults, waiting for tomorrow, move in a present behind which is yesterday or the day before yesterday or at most last week: they don’t want to think about the rest. Children don’t know the meaning of yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this, now: the street is this, the doorway is this, the stairs are this, this is Mamma, this is Papa, this is the day, this the night.”

― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

I am looking at a yellowed photograph showing four sisters with their mother in a yellowed photograph. In the foreground, the youngest of the siblings, Julia, is looking back at me with large, understanding eyes. She is only four years old but in half a century she will become my grandmother. She has no idea yet that she is facing a time of growing up in a nightmarish time of war, which fortunately will not be able to change the expression in her eyes. There was always understanding and tenderness in them. Today, I am looking into the eyes of my daughter, also Julia, and I see the same love and acceptance. Everything happens as if out of time, I constantly experience these beautiful feelings.

I dedicate the text to my Grandmother Julia and my Daughter, also Julia.

The images that Katarzyna Karpowicz paints cannot be set in the past or the future. They escape the category of time.

Once You Live and Once You Don’t is the title of an exhibition comprising a collection of painted works, where the dominant theme is that of childhood, a very important stage in a person’s life, providing the foundation for one’s further development. For Katarzyna Karpowicz, this theme is extremely important. In her paintings she is able to perfectly grasp the essence of childhood.

The essence of her works lies in intuition, emotion and feeling, which is something extremely ephemeral and therefore sometimes difficult to comprehend. It can be the experience of a feeling, an instinctive premonition or the realisation of something important. It is also a kind of self-experimentation, and its result is the telling through images of what is important, namely friendship based on devotion and fidelity, a child’s insight and sensitivity, a child’s admiration for nature, unity with nature, the sweetness of life in which there is also a lot of bitterness of existence, the difficult process of growing up, childhood traumas associated with war and its cruelty.

It is no coincidence that the exhibition of Katarzyna Karpowicz’s works is held in the Art Nouveau villa of Leopold Kindermann located at 31 Wólczańska Street. In the not too distant past, at the beginning of the 20th century, the children of Laura and Leopold Kindermann would run and make noise in the living rooms. The perceptive eyes of the children could spot bullfinches and wagtails hiding in the thicket of flowers, fruits, leaves, stems, branches, and roots, as well as a squirrel or a fox trying to sneak inside unnoticed. The fairy-tale ornamentation of the villa probably made the playtime of the first owners’ children more enjoyable and created an aura of a safe, idyllic home, designed with the needs of the youngest inhabitants in mind. The accumulation (inside as well as outside) of animal and plant motifs, both inside and outside the villa (roses, irises, oaks, chestnut trees, laurel leaves, grapevines, cones, and acanthus leaves) introduced an element of fantasy.

After the Second World War, until 1970, a kindergarten functioned in the villa, so the interiors were once again filled with children’s joy, laughter and energy. Later, the building was handed over to the Art Exhibition Office (now the City Art Gallery in Łódź – Willa Gallery). It can be said that there is a surprising correlation between the building’s past functions and the paintings of Katarzyna Karpowicz, which will once again, although only symbolically, bring children back into the historic spaces.

The works for the exhibition were created during the second half of 2023 and almost the entire year of 2024, with a view to presenting them in Łódź. It is worth recalling that it was the first time that the painter emphasised her presence in our city by taking part in an exhibition entitled “Seven Stages in a Woman’s Life,” which was important from a female perspective. The new presentation will be the largest ever exhibition of the Kraków painter’s works, consisting of more than 80 premiere oil paintings, which revolve around the very broadly understood issue of childhood. An exception will be the female artist’s Self-Portrait from 2000, which fits the narrative of the Łódź exhibition in a special way. The artist herself recalls the time when she created the small work in the following way: “It is the year 2000, I am painting a small self-portrait, a memento for the very end of my childhood. In 1999, I was still a child, watching the solar eclipse in Szczebrzeszyn with my father. In 2001, on my 16th birthday, Dad passed away. There is a solemnity in this little portrait and a kind of premonition of what is to come, and in what order. Life in these years is a pretty sad video clip set to my favourite music, which I listen to obsessively. I then watch myself from a distance, as if I were watching a film, or dreaming that I am dreaming. Many times I told a close friend that I felt as if my life was playing out in several other dimensions in parallel. I had the feeling during those years that I was not much short of having an adult me from the future extend a helping hand to myself. I wanted that very much, and I think I succeeded. Because I now, in the future, tenderly care for the image of myself from those years. Then, before my morning trip to school, and later, on my way to the English classes or the swimming pool, I listen to music. The song that keeps coming back to me is the one that I was obsessed with at that time: Idioteque by Radiohead. It’s disturbing, but it calms me down and keeps me focused.” As can be seen, the theme of the exhibition has been maturing in the painter’s mind since she was a child. From an early age, she drew children from her imagination and from nature. “I let the paintings flow out of me, guided by intuition and some strong conviction that it was meant to be this way and not that way at that moment. I knew what I wanted to talk about, not with words, but with images,” admits the painter.

Children are sometimes present in Karpowicz’s paintings both as images in portraits and as symbolic figures. On the one hand, they are portrayed in a way that is delicate and yet full of intense emotion, which may suggest a longing for carefree childhood. On the other hand, the figures of the children are often shown enigmatically, which creates space for interpretation.

In her paintings, childhood is not only a time of joy and carelessness, but also a time of confrontation with a brutal reality, a period full of contradictions, reflected through contrasts: between innocence and the brutality of the adult world, between joy and sadness. These kinds of tensions create a strong emotional charge in the paintings, which do not offer clear answers, but rather encourage reflection on how childhood shapes our future.

The female artist often returns to the theme of memory, especially in the context of childhood, treating it as a subject imbued with both a sentimental approach to the past and a more melancholic view of what is gone. The memory of childhood is often full of understatements, forgotten details, and painful experiences. Although every adult was once a child, not everyone wants to remember their childhood. Time sweetens unpleasant memories, and only the good things remain in our minds. And yet, childhood is a time full of both brightness and darkness. In the female artist’s depiction of childhood, we are confronted with many twists, turns, unresolved stories, and mysteries. Standing in front of Katarzyna Karpowicz’s paintings, viewers can experience emotions that they have not felt for a long time, or that they have forgotten—both the beautiful and the difficult ones.

The motif of childhood is actually a starting point for deeper reflections on the processes of growing up, the formation of identity, relations between generations, and the notion of memory and loss. Katarzyna Karpowicz’s paintings not only reflect the beauty of childhood as a carefree and happy time, but also address current themes and challenges of childhood. They show that there is a childhood full of existential dilemmas, characterised by evil and aggression, and a childhood associated with the nightmare of war, which always appears the same in the eyes of a child. Regardless of place and time, the scale of suffering is similar in every instance. The triptych presented at the exhibition, depicting rows of children’s heads, is very evocative in its message: a silent cry, a protest of defenceless victims. The painting depicting a boy lying beside his bed, who was not allowed to grow up because he did not survive the Second World War, also evokes great emotion.

Katarzyna Karpowicz often combines elements of realism and surrealism in her works, which imbues her paintings with mystery and ambiguity. A surrealistic atmosphere, which aims to capture the invisible, subjective experiences of a child as well as their fantasy, appears in many works with the theme of childhood. Pushing the boundaries of realism, the painter appeals to the viewers’ imagination, giving them the chance to see the world she has created. Such unreal spaces, as if taken out of time, can be found, for example, in the paintings from the “Streets” series. At first glance, it seems that nothing is as it should be, and yet everything is in its right place. It is a bit like a dream not governed by the law of logic, and yet everything here seems to be in perfect order. The alleys hide secrets and open up to viewers, giving them the opportunity to weave their own stories, stroll through the meanders of memory and consciousness, and discover hidden meanings. We can find autobiographical elements in these works, such as the popular gumballs, the game of hopscotch, posters, gestures, colours, a sense of exclusion, loneliness in a group, and friendship.

Imagination, however, is not only about imaginary stories; it also enables the child (and adults too) to open up to themselves and others, become able to act creatively and, above all, to think critically, so that they can look for possible solutions to problems that arise on their path to adulthood.

The word “road” immediately suggests a journey that the process of growing up can be identified with (Parade). It is important that it has a clear direction and purpose, does not lead in an unknown direction, and that the paths followed by the young person are not too bumpy but instead lead through beautiful surroundings, evoking awe, admiration, fascination, and enchantment. For the routine of everyday duties and the various situations that can cause stress, anxiety, and, consequently, discouragement, the female artist finds a remedy: an escape into nature, because in everyone there is a deep-rooted sense of unity with it (Escape from the Paediatric Hospital – straight into the green grass). Friendship with other children and with animals is an issue to which the painter pays special attention. Respect and kindness towards other creatures is a kind of felt bond with the natural world. How such a beautiful and deep relationship based on acceptance, trust and mutual kindness can be established is shown in the work of Tippi Degré, a French writer who spent her early childhood years with her parents in the bush. She developed a bond with many wild animals by talking to them. She spoke to them “with her eyes, her heart, her soul”. They would respond with gestures, or by simply looking at her, and then the words would “appear” in their eyes. She perceived that they understood her.

Katarzyna Karpowicz also addresses the subject of the process of growing up in terms of the child’s body, which undergoes transformation during this period. In Karpowicz’s paintings we can find subtle accents that draw attention to the physical changes associated with puberty.

“This exhibition is aimed at those who have sensitivity, empathy, and an appreciation for the complexity of this world. This exhibition is for those who perceive shadow and light, sadness and melancholy, but also appreciate the joy of communing with nature. For those who feel lonely but also enjoy being alone. For those who believe in love and friendship, despite sometimes experiencing painful disappointments. These paintings are for those who are open to seeing without unnecessary filters, in their own way, without giving clear-cut answers,” says the author of the paintings, the contemplation of which can be experienced as an authentic encounter with the self, and a discovery of the deepest truth about the other person. This is not surprising, as both the works and the exhibition in which they are presented were created out of empathy for people.