the workshop is open to students who are interested in two dimensional mediums of painting and drawing. We will discuss the ways of looking and finding source materials for work and of its transformation and the use in actual work. How one finds direct and indirect ways of dealing with history in general and art history. How personal reference in painting/drawing work and does not work, and all about aesthetics.
There will be no goal in making work rather a collaborative investigation.


Report on the workshop



The workshop Painting which is not only about painting drifted from the subject of painting to ideas of personal expression, arts and crafts and public performance.
The starting point was a question: How an artist can manifest his or hers ideas in public spaces without violating the rules of the surrounding?
The students proposed ‘to wear’ their statements. Important issue was the use of metaphors as an indirect way to express. We decided to work with the most common material of body wear: a T-shirt.
The T-shirts worked as a blank canvas to be turned into a self-expressive painting.
The piece of Maaike Sietzema was the most direct reference to personal experience - she wrote her diary stories with a ballpoint pen all over her body and on all her clothing.
Li Min wanted to make a point about the story of Chinese national hero Lei Feng to the younger generation by putting a sentence Lei Feng Passing by Gu Lin Park metaphorically stating that his ideas should be present with us today.
Other students like Ren Da Qing and a collaboration group Yi Zhang & Jing Guan & Yi Hong Zou referred to significance of tradition in China.
Some students took a social position in their work like Anne Schiffer ‘trashy outfit’ against pollution or Sujeewa Kumari by embroidering tea to the clothes, which for her is a symbol of colonialism.
Other works were inspired by dreams and fantasy - like the amazing outfit made from the dead plants by Pang Lei or the ‘Shun and Chain’ manga story interpreted by Xu Hui.
Two more interesting propositions came from Bassam Alkhouri and Hong Rongman - Bassam used material of fake money and gold papers that are used in China on a day of festivity of the death. He created a beautiful warrior outfit reminding that all traditions and stories might be reinterpreted.
Hong Rongman was touched by the story of a street woman of Nanjing -she told him incredible things about her life - as a way of a gift for Rong Man she painted the T-shirt with greeting for him. (PO)





Li Min, Paulina Olowska and Sujeewa Kumari









Anne Schiffer and Paulina Olowska



Pang Lei





Website Paulina Olowska: www.olowska.roundtheworld.com