Alexandra Karpilovski, 28-29 December 2015

As long as I can remember, a lack of roots have been accompanying my thoughts and life.

Being born in Ukraine, raised up in Sweden and studying in Holland is something that I think have pushed even more my need, coloured my work and filled me with a constant desire to move without borders in mind and body.

I work intuitively and use myself in my work. I play with the notion of the stage, a quest for showcasing and demolishing hierarchical systems, for connection and the melancholia that surround our shared current state, pointing the direction from my own current position. This ranges from drawings, paintings, installations, video, poetry and most recently text-based performances in collaboration with sound artists.

In one my latest works Let my Internal be your external which furthers my interest in performative confrontation and the bearing of the self I performed a script in an empty gallery space.

By seeking a connection and a confrontation I found it to be even more lonesome, which seems to highlight the hypotheses and statement - No man is an island.

The ongoing projects, Permanent Vacation and Buy A Beach are two examples of working with the postcard image of paradise. The used and re-used to exhaustion, the epiphany of kitsch - The Palm.

We all know it, even if we have never laid our head beneath one. A well known symbol that also stands for retreat, paradise and serenity - reproduced and reused.

A longing for something else, where the grass is always greener and the sun always warmer.

There is a melancholy surrounding these thin line figures with a juicy heart and big head on top.

Some headed towards the sea, some towards the sky and some are left alone, headed for each others shade. While some end up beach towels, in frames at Ikea, beer logos, shirts, bar signs and others in paintings for other to buy. The faith of the palm tree does not have a copyright. A simple image being filled to the top.

And sometimes I ask myself, is that me?

In my installation works I use found materials, thrown away objects. I treat the space as a painting and focus

on the re-contextualisation of a collective pop-cultural memory.

With big influences from pop and by emotional analysation, researching without filter, performed with presence I want to capture the void and reflect on its borders.

By asking questions and presenting statements in one, using qualities of political roles in our society, with an undertone of humour and darkness my intention is to put light on the isolation that can be experienced without a clear overlook.

My interest lies in the emotional, the lust-filled, the group and the loneliness, the separation and the desire to be seen. I create a world to enter into, with its own rules and structures, a space narrowed down to a centered scene filled with information, a social area, a place for everyones own reflections and parallels, a scene in which the roles of who is what shifts and moves depending on who rises up and in.

A place for contemplation and relaxation, erased borders and permanent vacation.

The intention is to materialise the workings of my imagination into a physical environment in order to make sense of the self and the cultural conditioning it involves.

Sharing ones own inner, with or without fear may cause discomfort, but only because one other can mirror itself in the other ones reflection.

- A state of mind, a mirage, a fatigue, the calm before the storm, or after.

The used and the worn-out, a gathering place for souls on a journey, a landscape for those who do not stand still and that which is in uproar. Vulnerabilities and flaws are what makes us grow, what brings us closer to each other.

ARTIST STATEMENT BY ALEXANDRA KARPILOVSKI, 2015
PHOTO CRED JOHAN AVEDAL