Darling Pearls & Co welcomes the painter Aleksandra Osa for a Summer residency at Darling’s Attic. Her paintings are figurative in style and as can be exemplified by two of her recent series of works (Q.E.D., a series of female portraits and nudes, and Melting Paradise, a series of beach landscapes) which depart from formal investigations within painting genres and explore topics of autobiographical interest.

The artist’s statement for the series Aleksandra will develop from London reads as follows:

“In my colour studies I’ve found green to be the most problematic colour of all. Historically, green was often not recognised at all as an independent colour. Renaissance painters learned how to make things look green without using green paint. It was a shade of blue, or it was just ignored by artists. In Aztec Mexico green was also seen as a kind of blue – a very important symbol of fertility which appears in plants and water. Green is in a relationship of opposition to one of the most powerful colours – red. Following this logic, green can be seen as in contrast to power and aggression. It is the most relaxing and calm of all the colours.
In Greece, where I live, you don’t see much green. England, on the other hand, is considerably greener [1]. As a continuator of old Polish Kapist tradition, my goal is to explore the colour and our understanding of it. Green bothers me, scares me, and makes me happy. Green reminds me of my childhood, beer, and hospital walls. It is a subject on its own. I seek green. That’s what it is all about.”
– Aleksandra Osa

As she paints from photographs she takes herself, Osa will visit a variety of local green areas as well as the city of Canterbury, one of the most important destinations of pilgrimage [within current Europe] for its Christian history and also for its significance in literature. “The Canterbury Tales”, a book by Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400), groups 24 tales presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket (c. 1119-1170), who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. In this city, she wishes to see the grave of the Polish writer Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), a notable novelist who wrote in English and was based in Bishopsbourne.

We invite you to drink beer, see and discuss the results of this endeavour with us.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41901294

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Aleksandra Osa was born in Warsaw in 1988. She graduated Academy of Fine Arts (Warsaw, 2015) at the Faculty of Painting. Her works have been featured at solo and collective exhibitions in Poland, UK, Greece, and in the USA.
Aleksandra has experimented with several media, such as acrylics, ink and gouache, but oils tend to be her most preferred medium. In her works the artist attempts to interpret reality through her own artistic resources, simultaneously maintaining a semblance of realism. Her art is inspired by her own environment, treating the subject merely as an excuse for the search of artistic form. Aleksandra worked, alongside an international team of painters, as part of the animation team of the movie Loving Vincent (2015-2016). In her role as a painting animator she specialised in moving camera as well as in landscape scenes. She currently lives and works in Athens, Greece.