'One hand clapping' by Katarzyna Gajewska
Hang Tough Contemporary
Mar 23—Apr 9 2023

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Kev Sheridan | Artist Statement 

As the artist's works are all done using only her hands, I wanted to mirror that by choosing acoustic sounds that are generated physically, rather than synthesised. The main instrument is a kalimba which is played with the thumbs. Glockenspiel, guitar and crash cymbal also feature.

Due to the recurring subject matters of women and storytelling in her work, I included the female voice, with many lines overlapping to create a more complex texture, like much of the works, without overloading the whole piece. This also complements the titles 'Voices' and 'Talking Heads'. In fact, all of the exhibited pieces' titles are included in the voice parts.

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Katarzyna Gajewska | Artist Statement

The title of this exhibition One Hand Clapping is derived from a kōan - a paradoxical word, phrase, or story used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the limits of logical thought and to bring about illumination. The kōan asks “We know the sound of two hands clapping. But what is the sound of one hand clapping?” Akin to a riddle, a kōan tires the mind as it attempts to ‘solve’ it. By exhausting one’s analytic intellect and the egotistic will, the mind is purged and thus creates space to embrace one’s intuition.

This body of work by Katarzyna Gajewska is the material manifestation of such a ‘purge’. Gajewska empties her mind onto the canvas, translating and transforming her intuitive thoughts into textured, tangible, organisms with a heightened sense of materiality. After 3 years of intensive painting transitioning from figurative to abstraction, Gajewska’s work is no longer bound by order, it is a meditation on both the artist’s inner and outer landscape, free from convention and grounded in the artist’s process of making the unconscious, conscious.

Hidden in her paintings are objects with sentimental resonance such as an electrocardiogram from an extended period in hospital and remnants of soil from the Ballinskelligs in Kerry. Although, colour truly is the protagonist in this body of work. It moves between each painting like a rapturous wave, imprinting abstract patterns upon the canvas. The artist treats colour as a language, each tone reflecting a word, expressing the artist’s story. One Hand Clapping surveys Gajewska’s innermost thoughts, revelations and shadows in a series of paintings that are underpinned by sincere vulnerability.

Kev Sheridan's audio response to Katarzyna Gajewska's 'One Hand Clapping' exhibition

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Kev Sheridan's audio response to Katarzyna Gajewska's 'One Hand Clapping' exhibition

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