Kintsugi
Martyna Benedyka
"Between Walls the back wings of the hospital where nothing will grow lie cinders in which shine the broken pieces of a green bottle" – William Carlos Williams
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage. After my recent surgeries, I thought of the concept of kintsugi as a perfect technique to mend my body and soul and overcome the feeling of loss. This work allowed me to accept my precious scars which I was left with and treat each of them as a unique break that soon would be filled. The images correspond with each other in a similar way to our body and being. It is a never-ending conversation: light – dark, day – night, shapes, lines, textures and spots, deep breaths, in and out, like the curtain and the wind. Revolving around the topic of human body and skin, Kintsugi is a black and white photography journey through the process of healing and searching of the essence of resilience.
Martyna Benedyka, born in 1991, is a Polish visual artist, vocalist and teacher working in a wide range of media including painting, film and digital photography, collage, installation, and sound art. She studied Art and Design at the Gray’s School of Art in Scotland, UK and graduated with a First Class BA (Hons) degree in Fine Art Painting in 2014. She has exhibited in the UK, Poland, Romania, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, Canada and the USA. Her work has been chosen by the Federation of British Artists for the Futures - UK’s largest annual survey of emerging contemporary figurative art at the Mall Galleries, London, among others. She is the recipient of both Polish and British scholarships for her artistic achievements as well as the winner of international residencies and competitions - the latest being the Photo Romania Festival 2022 and De Structura cross-border project 2022-2023, Tallinn, Estonia. Her work is in private and public collections. She specializes in classical music and has performed in many group as well as solo concerts internationally since 2004.
On the border
"What is a photograph? For me, a fragment of quick-silver, a lucid dream, a scribbled note from the subconscious to be deciphered, perhaps, over years. It is a monologue trying to become a conversation, an offering, an alibi, a salute." – Eva Rubinstein
On The Border is a tribute to silence that always exists on the verge of disappearing. The interactions between the images with their connections, serve as the border between visible and clandestine fragments. Examining ideas of existence and being, I look for the essence of a person through the essence of an object. The uncanny stillness in movement challenges the idea of where we are at the exact time and place, which is not like any other time and place. In the feeling of solitude and quiet, this visual story takes us to the unknown capturing the familiar.