KATARZYNA DERDA
“EPHEMERAL VISIONS OF REALITY” -THE ARTISTRY OF KATARZYNA DERDA
Hauntingly evocative scenes create an unforgettable montage of humanity at its most mysterious in the fascinating artistic creations of Katarzyna Derda.
It has often been posited that “Art imitates life,” and Derda’s masterful mini-stories confirm that contention. Yet the artist does far more than provide an artistic parallel to reality. She teases, suggests, evokes-sometimes gently frightens as her lifelike doll images propose a myriad of fanciful realities wherein the real truth to be gleaned is limited only by the imagination of the viewer.
Although each doll in photographs appears in unmistakably realistic settings, the veracity to be found in each picture vignette is a certitude that cannot be readily defined. Each picture holds a mystery that remains to be solved; the lesson to be learned as ephemeral and fanciful as the main character that aptly represents Derda’s mystical, enchanting vision.
Is each ghostlike doll image merely a symbol, a transitory homage to reality in the uncertain, formidable and ever-changing realm of existence we know as life, or is the doll a mysterious reference to a dimension about which we know little or nothing at all? The seemingly purposeful, yet expressionless face of each doll, suggests much, but tells us very little.
In the visual creations of Katarzyna Derda, the viewer embarks on a one-way journey into an unknown familiarity; a world in which fantasy and reality are forever merged. Derda’s vision offers no definitive emotional signposts, concrete benchmarks or familiar truths upon which to rely. It is safe to say that the viewer experiences a fusion of being and nothingness with the only possible explanations eliciting yet more questions.
