Polish artist Justyna Kopania welcomes us into autumn with a series of beautifully executed oil paintings. Bursting with warm color, the paintings explore the varying moods of a fall landscape. Trees saturated with leaves in colors ranging from burnt ochre to deep crimson move toward a skeletal state, casting melancholy shadows on lakes and rivers. The artist continues to show an evolution in her work, masterfully building layers of oil paint to bring vibrant texture to the canvas.
Kopania shows a deep understanding of using color to build shape and depth, both on a technical and emotional level. In an era when contemporary art is often defined by non-traditional media, she is a throwback reminiscent of the great English Romanticist landscape painter J.M.W. Turner. As a proud exponent of classical oil painting, the artist uses her brushstrokes to transport the viewer and elicit an emotional response. Cozying up with a cup of apple cider, hurrying through the rainy streets under an umbrella, watching the foliage change color and then fall away—all memories evoked with the stroke of a brush.
The artist shares, “Perhaps the world around us humans is different from how we perceive it. Probably in every drop of rain, grain of sand, or snowflake, there are millions of colors that everyone can see if they decide to observe them with an unusual perspective. In a painting I wish to interact with and capture the quick passage of time, seconds giving rise to minutes, minutes that generate hours, hours turn into days, then into week and months. Finally, from months to years, and from years an entire lifetime. The greatest art is to live life in order to be happy, to live in harmony with oneself and with the world around us, giving ourselves to others.”
Justyna Kopania: Website | Facebook | deviantART