Particle H
Ewa Sułek
At the first individual
exhibition of Julia Curyło in the Wozownia gallery in Toruń, July 2011, she was
preoccupied with the complicated relationships and permeations of the sacred
and the profane. Through her large, meticulously polished canvas she was
analysing the twenty-first century man's relationship to faith, mysticism and
religion. In particular, she was fascinated by the problem of commercialisation
of faith, the question of the existence of popular culture in religion and the
related aesthetics of kitsch and fairground shows. As she says:
"One could even say that
religion has been "mass popularised" and subject to commercialization
- like the world around us."
The paintings depict garish
figures of the saints among the inflatable dolphin, lambs, soap bubbles. At
this stage of her art, Curyło's inspirations with surrealism and neo-pop are
clearly visible. The formal solutions used by her the refer, on one hand, to
the work of Jeff Koons, on the other - seem to be related to Robert Rumas's
artistic activities. The artist was interested in the patterns of shaping the
moral order and ethical principles through the aesthetics of worship. Figures
of saints are a response to the search for God, his material equivalent. This
is why we can say that, contrary to appearances resulting from a completely
different aesthetics of the new series of paintings by the artist, she is
still interested in the same thing - finding the God's particle in the human
world.
The new series of works is
dedicated to the LHC - Large Hadron Collider. The paintings were created for
several months after Curyło visited Geneva, where probably the greatest
experiment in the history of the world is located. In the CERN laboratory, the
scientists built the biggest machine on Earth, LHC (Large Hadron Collider), an
accelerator, that is a machine that accelerates particles of matter. Since
2008, the LHC has been colliding two counter-rotating beams of protons. Last
year the scientists discovered the so-called Higg's boson, marked Ho.
This elementary particle is supposed to have existed for about ten milliseconds
after the Big Bang, and given rise to all matter. For this reason, it is called
by some the God particle. It is through it that other elementary components of
matter would probably get their mass. The scientists at CERN believe that Higgs
particles have a key role in the universe. Their discovery could give an answer
to the ever asked yourself the question of humanity: how the world was created?
The designers of the collider
and the supporters of the are seeking rational explanation for the riddle of
the existence of matter. They do not find satisfaction in the explanations
based on faith, which often postulate the existence of a superior being, the
creator and the demiurge, the maker of the universe (creationism is part of as
many as three of the five major world monotheistic religions - Judaism,
Christianity and Islam). The conflict on the theory of creation brings many
other issues - including questions as to how our perception of the world is
going to change if scientists can prove the existence of a hypothetical
particle Ho?
When it comes to formal
matters, one can see a change in aesthetics in relation to previous works. The
fairground atmosphere, straight out of Sunday's indulgences in the country,
disappears completely. Some pictures are very detailed presentations with
deeply symbolic and metaphorical meaning. These are the visions always
dominated by the large hadron collider, a machine, a creation of human hands
and human intellect. In six paintings the collider itself is shown with great
realism and literalism. Its form - circle - is yet another layer of meaning,
which can be found in the works. The shape of the machine is reminiscent of a
mandala - it is composed of abstract elements forming a regular and complete
whole. Mandala, or a "wheel", "circle" in Sanskrit, appears
very often in the traditional art of Hinduism and Buddhism, where it has got a
strong spiritual and ritual significance. It is believed that making the
mandala has got calming and healing properties. To this day, Tibetan monks make
it from sand during meditation. However, the mandala can also be found in
Christianity - in the form of rosette, Celtic cross, halo, oculus or a crown
of thorns. This theme appears in the illuminated books by Hildegard of Bingen,
a visionary and mystic who lived in the twelfth century, and in gnostic
practices, including Rosicrucians. Its complex symbolism is often read as an
ideal organizational structure of life - a cosmic diagram reminding us of our
relationship with the infinity and of the world which is both in our bodies and
minds as well as outside them. According to Carl Jung, the mandala is the centre
of everything - it expresses the essence, finiteness and finality. The
structure of a circle, which is the structure of the LHC, is then essentially
perfect and forms a perfect whole - just as God in monotheistic religions. A
series of images by Curyło thus raises the issue of the modern God - for some
it is science, for others - religion. The artist combined the theory of
creation and end of the world derived from religion with scientific research,
depicting a hard to verbalise issue of modern times - the struggle of rationalism
and the desire to know the truth with fidelity to tradition and faith.
The remaining dozen canvases
are reminiscent of biological abstraction. In fact, they are, however, a true
picture of the physical phenomena - they show collisions of protons, presented
with an aesthetic sophistication, captivating with beauty.
Through the LHC series, Curyło demonstrates a deeply humanistic
approach to scientific issues. In them, she notices not only scientific
rationalism but above all, the curiosity and desire to explain the phenomena
that have always accompanied the humanity. At the same time, she remains
faithful to symbolic realism, believing in the power and immense sensuality of
painting.
Few paintings from the "God's particle " 2013 series . That series is a continuation of Large Hadron Collider paintings.
