Aleksandra Kamionka BA (Hons) Fine Art 2020

As an artist brought up during the Information Age, I am concerned with environmental awareness and the shift in culture away from a symbiotic relationship with the planet we live on, instead favouring instant gratification and shallow technologically aided ‘connectivity’ which cannot truly be felt . My practice is symptomatic of the Artifice which late stage capitalism, hand in hand with postmodernism, have bred. Ibelieve wearebeing distancedfrom the unknown, fleshiness and sensuality of nature which remind us of what it means to be human, outside of our economic worth.

My practice is based on experience and perception, using photography and memory to produce images. Perception is an intrinsic human process of constructing meaning- I explore this process by using visual elements which counteract each other to manifest narrative and meaning. Perception is also very fluid however and is constantly changing, allowing me to experiment with the theme of manufactured reality- the images I create are mostly based on reality, however, through the creative process images are distanced from truth and become abstracted or ‘virtual’- merging physicality into a wholly conceptual space. Through this I attempt to outline the instability of living a continuously more digitalised life. I explore the diminishing relation of current and future generations to ecology and nature. I believe that due to relentless commodification and the economic conditions of late stage capitalism we are beginning to see nature as something other and foreign due to our removal from it; nature, alongside painting, resists commodification due to their agency.