George Kosinski - Artist's Statement
"When we paint as artists, we touch on a process
that we can't put into words. Hence we paint" (1999)
I was privileged to have been brought up by Polish refugees on the west coast of Cumbria. I suppose I must have lacked roots from the beginning and remember, as a child, looking out of my bedroom window to the Irish Sea and wondering who lived on the other side! Little did I know there was a little Irish girl growing up, who would become my wife
Over those years I looked longingly at the beautiful mountains of the Lake District and the Furness Peninsula and continued to wonder who lived on the other side!
So I became a traveler before I traveled, an explorer from a distance, developing the art of wondering and imagining. I also enjoyed my time as an architect, defining spaces and relationships, focused within a sacred area called a "drawing board"
I always painted
After a while, I realised I couldn't be confined by the edge of the drawing board and had a burning desire to venture, at all cost, forgetting to consult with my family. Taking a long break from architecture, we traveled to the Middle East and settled for many years in Jerusalem. Settled is probably the wrong word as I discover I am a sojourner at heart, as I write from Grassy Creek, secluded in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina
My paintings are primarily expressions of experiences as I interact with a very beautiful world around us - a remnant of Creation, with glimpses of its former glory. I get lost in studying relationships of light and form, colour and texture, balance and harmony, set in proportion - these are all essential parts of my palette
Sojourning is associated with pilgrimage. Exploring widths, depths
and heights persist. There are no boundaries for an artist
I am inspired by the critique in Genesis where at the end of each day God, as the Master Artist, looks at the results of His creative hand and says; "It's good!"
As for 'roots'? Well ..........;
"The Wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one born of the Spirit" - Y'shuah ben David