Fresh Paint
Elaine Kazimierczuk
While the great outdoors might feel like an abstract
concept for most of us at the moment, for Elaine
Kazimierczuk it has always been this way. Her paintings
of fields and woodlands are semi-abstracted, with
botanical accuracy forsaken in favour of bold colour
choices and rhythmic mark making.
Elaine is something of a Renaissance woman, having
studied chemistry, fulfilled sculpture commissions and
even been shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award four years
ago. Yet while she can seemingly turn her hand to most
disciplines, it is a lifelong love of the natural environment
that motivates her work. She regularly supports the
conservation charity Plantlife and the subject of The Last
Meadow at Cae Blaen-Dyffryn is one of the nature
reserves that they manage.
Perhaps surprisingly, Elaine has yet to visit the
Carmathenshire site in her painting, having relied instead
upon photos supplied to her by Plantlife. She likes to
manipulate her source materials on her laptop first, before
sketching out the main shapes on her canvas in pencil.
The arrangement of a scene will often remain much as
she found it, with the artistry coming in her curation of the
objects within it. “The abstraction is in the process of
selection – what I choose to pick out and how I represent
those elements with my own vocabulary of marks and
gestures,” she explains. “The aim is to achieve a certain
result, one that captures the abundance of nature and the
joy of orchids in full bloom. Have you seen Persian garden
carpets or the landscapes in Florentine tapestries? They
achieve something similar with their stylisations but in
different media.”
The roots of her philosophy are taught in her “Art of
Abstraction” workshops in which, she says, she
encourages her students to “experiment with different
media promiscuously” and “think of their work as a
painting, rather than a hillside or a tree”.
Despite relying upon the landscape for inspiration,
Elaine isn’t worried about a shortage of subject matter
during the lockdown. She has a large collection of photos
to draw upon and intends to cycle out from her
Nottinghamshire home when she can.
“The blackthorn is just coming into blossom and I’ve
painted the buttercup meadow, which is five minutes from
where I live, at least a dozen times,” she says excitedly.
http://www.elainekazimierczuk.comRIGHT Elaine
Kazimierczuk, The
Last Meadow at
Cae Blaen-Dyffryn,
oil on canvas,
80x80cm