“Lizard II”, Anna Karolak, 2008, Digital Art, 5220 px x 5333 px, 50 x 51 cm.
Anna Karolak graduated from the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland, in the year 2000.
Over the years, her artistic activities covered oil and tempera painting (using traditional techniques, as well as gold plating), workshop graphic art (mostly “dry needles” and aqua-fortis etching), digital art, and commercial art. Currently she is focusing on oil painting, digital graphic art, and commercial art.
Anna Karolak’s works are present in art collections in Poland and abroad. She has presented her works at exhibitions in Poland, France, and Italy, among others under the aegis of the Foundation for Documentation of Poland’s Cultural Heritage and the International Women’s Forum. She has participated in television programs on culture: in Polsat (“Portret na życzenie”), Centrum, and Religia, as well as tv/onet.tv (“Kruchta Kulturalna” and “Hit-Kit”). Notably, in 1995 she won the first prize in the Poland-wide contest for children's toy designers organized by the Institute of Industrial Design in Warsaw under the aegis of the Ministry of National Education. In 2008 her web site (www.karolak-art.com) won an award of the “WPROST” opinion-forming weekly magazine. In 2009 her graphic titled “Zwierciadło życia” (Mirror of life) was the opening work in the Art Book of issue 1(3) 2009 of the limited edition of “Tematy z Szewskiej”, a quarterly magazine published by the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the Wrocław University. In October 2009 Anna Karolak started her cooperation with the Polish Academy of Sciences in the area of designing the Academy's posters. In September 2009 her poster titled “Fryderyk Chopin. Muzyka mojej duszy II” (Frederic Chopin. The music of my soul II) was considered one of the best posters in the Poland-wide contest to commemorate the great artist organized by the web site www.sophisti.pl in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and the Poster Museum in Warsaws.
About her works:
Anna Karolak usually describes her works as belonging to magical realism, which represents a particular approach to fantasy. Her works are a conglomerate of her interest in mystics and religion, but at the same time they are the outcome of her scientific knowledge, mostly in astronomy and cosmology. Moreover, her art is greatly influenced by electronic and classical music.
With regards to the meaning of her works and the techniques he uses, Anna Karolak’s works connect the past and the future. She employs painter’s recipes of old ages, enriched with her own technological inventions, to create unique visions. Her works are profoundly timeless. She easily slides from the world of spirits to the material world and gives her works, whose foundations are “scientific”, a unique metaphysical character. In their many meanings and interpretations, her works use traditional symbols, religions, gnosis, and archetypes, while being based on “hard” science, among others on astronomy.
The scientific references in Anna Karolak’s works are very subtle. They are a play of symbols and metaphors. What is notable is the dynamic change of her style, which is visible in her most recent digital works. The colors of Anna Karolak’s works are gaining depth, and their topics are an expression of the most profound “spaces of her metaphysical experiences.”. Her art is becoming more and more “spiritual”.
Most of her recent digital works are sketches for oil paintings to be completed in 2010.
Anna Karolak emphasizes that an important aspect of her works is “music”. This is due to the fact that she is under great influence of music by her favorite artists, Klaus Schulze, Liza Gerrard, Constance Demby, and Software among others. These artists “from another world” are her kin in spirit.
The works of Anna Karolak, the conglomerate of inspirations and meanings, do not easily fit into any category. Symbolism, fantastic realism, and magical realism are just directions that she has followed in some aspects of her works. The artist herself resists being subject to a rigid classification. She describes her art as belonging to other dimensions and declares it to be the fruit of insightful thought and peaceful contemplation. Her art is suspended in time and, like an instrument, it records the echoes of primeval truths revealed by her subconscious. Her art wanders in the meanders of her soul and in Cosmos...
Award of the “WPROST” weekly granted www.karolak-art.com website.
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Anna Maria Karolak - Virtual Art Gallery. Fantasy artwork.
Mystical graphics and paintings.
© 2009 Anna Maria Karolak.
All Rights Reserved.