10 Questions with Kamila CK

Passionate about revolutionizing the way we view our inner world and our own human journey, Kamila CK's works merge boundaries between abstract painting, Japanese Zen calligraphy, and performance arts (including musicality, circus, and physical theatre) in a contemporary art context.

It wasn't until she traveled to Japan in 2018 to find her 'artist side' that Kamila CK started to understand the power of her artistic expression truly. She had the great fortune of studying shodo (the art of Japanese calligraphy) under a Japanese Zen calligraphy teacher. This key force helped her develop her own unique painting method based on the spiritual way of painting in shodo and her love for movement and performance. At the same time, for over five years, she has constantly been exploring movement performance, especially circus arts (using trapeze, aerial hoop, or silks).

Born in Poland in 1985, she earned a Master's Degree in International Hospitality Management from Oxford Brookes University, UK. She worked for some of the leading hospitality brands before becoming an artist in 2018. Since then, she studied with Slade School of Fine in London and completed a Professional Course in Circus Arts with AirCraft Circus Academy in London. At the same time, she has been mentored by Rie Takeda (Japanese shodo teacher) and Genevieve Monastesse (known to be one of the best aerial teachers in Europe).

Her performance works have been staged in London and abroad. During the pandemic, her biggest breakthrough came when she completed her first true collection of abstract paintings called "Bang", released in 2021. Within a few months, she was chosen for a gallery representation by the award-winning Laura I Gallery in London. She was also selected for an art residency in Provence, France 2021, where she staged a shodo wall installation (Japanese calligraphy wall) and developed her first interdisciplinary performance combining shodo painting with contemporary storytelling and aerial acrobatics (on a trapeze), integrating all her disciplines into a one coherent performance work.

She is currently developing her second painting collection in preparation for her first solo exhibition and a new performance. Kamila lives and works between Lincoln and London, UK.

www.emergingvisions.art | @kamila_ck_artist

ARTIST STATEMENT

The subject matter of Kamila's work comes from the artist's interest in psychology, intuition, and self-development. The works are designed as a mirror for the viewer's inner world. Each artwork has a deliberate story and message behind it (whether paintings or performances), speaking about universal subjects on the human journey and showing recognizable experiences and emotions that the audience can relate to and reflect on.

Artist's methods are innovative and completely her own, developed from the love of movement and inspired by the spiritual way of painting in shodo (Japanese zen/spirit calligraphy). When she develops new work, she avoids all logical planning but rather has a generic vision of what she wants to create, including the main subject and an emotional subject for people to experience. Once the focus is established, the process is highly intuitive and organic- resembling traditional shodo principles where a Zen calligrapher removes its mind from the process to let the workflow out of itself. The true creative spirit takes over, and the work creates itself beyond anyone's expectations. This unique method is applied to all artworks, regardless of the medium. Kamila CK believes that movement and creating at the moment is the gateway to creativity, abstraction, and the genius self.

Her works blend elements of human psychology, surrealism, abstraction, and Japan. Her strongest artistic inspirations include: Cy Womby, Frank Bowling, Hilma af Klint, Kandinsky, Yves Klein and Marina Abramovich.

INTERVIEW

First of all, introduce yourself to our readers. What are your history and your artistic background?

Hello, I'm Kamila CK. I am an interdisciplinary Polish-British artist. My work merges boundaries between performance art (circus, movement, and musicality), colourful abstract painting, and Japanese Zen calligraphy (shodo).
I was born in Poland and have lived and worked in the UK for the last 15 years. I hold a Master's Degree in International Hotel Management from Oxford, followed by a successful career as a marketing head for London's luxury hotels. In 2016, I left it behind to become an artist. At that time, I had no background, education, or experience in arts, and I only had this strong calling that I couldn't ignore anymore. I trained in intuitive Mastery and studied the creative nature of human beings from international coaches and teachers. This was fundamental in shaping my decisions and, ultimately, my whole journey as an artist and the way I created my art.
To find my true artistic side, I travelled to Kyoto, Japan, where I lived during the summer of 2018. This is when I fell in love with shodo (Japanese art of Zen calligraphy) and started painting colourful abstract works. I attended painting courses with Slade School of Fine Arts in London and shodo calligraphy under a Japanese teacher Rie Takeda. 
Parallel to that, I also had my fascination with movement and performance, especially aerial acrobatics. I had the privilege to train with leading circus performers in London, including the legendary Genevieve Monastresse (from the very first show of Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, Canada) and AirCraft Circus, where in 2019, I completed a professional course in Circus Performing Arts.
My breakthrough came last year in 2021, following my first collection of abstract paintings called "Bang". Within a month of the release, the works won a contemporary art competition and were exhibited with Boomer Gallery, London. Immediately after, the works were selected for representation by the multi-award-winning Laura I Gallery in London. Finally, it was also a year of my first art residency abroad (with NG Art Creative Residency, Provence), where I developed my first interdisciplinary performance, which combined shodo painting with storytelling using dance and aerial acrobatics (on a trapeze). It was a very transformative experience as it allowed me to integrate all my disciplines into one coherent work.

What is your personal aim as an artist?

My goal is to make people rethink the nature of existence by connecting to their soul desires and magic in life. I want people to feel all their emotions, thoughts, and desires, including the ones that they push away and try to deny. So they can take different actions and make day-to-day changes i.e., waking up early to write that book they always wanted to write or quitting a job they no longer enjoy; ultimately live the version of their life they have always wanted to. 
This is especially visible with my paintings, created to change the vibration of space and give viewers an enlightening experience by bringing intuitive insights. I guess we can say meditating without actually sitting down to meditate. A person can just look at the painting to get the wisdom they need to bubble up. 

In your opinion, what role does the artist have in society?

The role of creatives, especially artists, is to provide society with visual and intelligent stimuli on a soul to soul level. Opening their imagination and thinking beyond their current reality. Transporting them to a no ordinary world with a visual narrative that speaks to the spirit, providing inspiration, reflection, and even being a catalyst for change to soothe the soul. By making people more connected to themselves and living more fulfilled lives on an individual level, we can create changes on a universal level. Ultimately leading to creating a society that is more empowered and united. I also like to see artists providing thoughtful critiques of our political, economic, and social systems — pushing communities to engage thoughtfully and make steps toward social progress. 

In your work, you mix performance, abstract painting and Japanese Zen calligraphy. Why did you choose these mediums and do they have a specific meaning for you? 

All the mediums have emerged naturally during my journey (and even evolved into their own form). Each medium has its own story and magic to it. 

Let's start with shodo and Japan. For years, it was the country that attracted an artist within me. To start with, I never knew why I had such a strong pull to it. Immediately after I left my hospitality life, my intuition turned up the 'Japanese frequency' like crazy. All I could hear every day was 'go to Japan' 'go to Japan' and the voice in my head was so getting louder and louder. After two years of holding this tension, I saved enough money to go on my own. I lived in Kyoto and took lessons in all major Japanese arts, including calligraphy from a Kyoto-based Zen master, as well as ikebana and tea ceremony. I also lived in multiple temples to have access to original Japanese masterpieces on the walls. The experience gave me an enormous inspiration and showed me the gifts I had never even imagined. At times it felt like I was Japanese in my previous life, and all the gifts and abilities were there within my reach. On my return to the UK, I found an amazing Japanese teacher (women!) who was an artist and calligrapher from the age of 8. I started my own shodo practice based on her teachings. Over time, I learned that it is not the perfect execution of strokes that fascinates me but rather the Zen principles of channeling the characters in one go without correcting them afterward. It was mind-blowing for my painting process, forcing me to produce strong and perforative marks at the moment and stop painting in a Western way (especially related to touching up and correcting the work).

As for abstract paintings, I always knew this was one of the most powerful ways for me to express myself as I love colours. Initially, I had huge resistance to it due to my lack of experience and knowledge in painting. However, it forced me to think outside of the box. Following my strong connection to intuition and my Zen practice in shodo (Japanese calligraphy), I discovered that my natural way of painting with colours and movement was very spiritual and Zen. When I paint and channel the invisible, it naturally puts me into a higher conscious state where magic just happens. I often find that I don't need to look at the paper when I'm brushing/painting/moving in a Zen state. Instead, I am in movement meditation, with all my focus on the message and emotion that I want the viewer to grasp. The true creative spirit takes over, and the work creates itself beyond anyone's expectations. 

As for movement and circus performance, it all started in 2017 when on my 31st birthday, I saw the most beautiful performance on aerial silks in London's West End. After seeing that, my intuition would start screaming to me to go upside down. I didn't understand at first, but I decided to follow it anyway, I was luckily naturally fit and flexible, so it felt like a natural progression (apart from starting at a late age, but I didn't want this to deter me). I very quickly discovered that I just love creating movement in the air. I light up - maybe because I'm a Libra, an air sign after all, which could easily hang in the air for hours. In 2019, after a few years of consistent training, I completed a professional course in circus arts, which made me I realised that I am an artist as much as I am an aerialist. I treat the aerial movement as a form of my medium for telling stories and rethinking the nature of existence - just as my paintings hopefully do.

Let's talk about your creative process. Where do you draw inspiration from and how do you transfer it into your work?

To create the most authentic artworks, I follow my strong connection with intuition following years of training. I don't sketch or pre-plan works in detail. My methods are innovative and completely my own, developed from the love of movement and inspired by the spiritual way of painting in shodo (Japanese zen/spirit calligraphy). 

When I develop new work, I avoid most logical planning but rather have a generic vision, including the main theme and emotions for people to experience. I also paint in the Japanese way, in one go, with corrections, like a Zen calligrapher removing its mind from the process to let the work flow out of itself. I tend to paint standing up so I can move around the canvas and create works with bold and theatrical movements with colours.

Do you like to experiment with new techniques, mediums and materials, or do you tend to gravitate towards the same ones?

As a multi-disciplinary artist, I am naturally attracted to experimentation and new mediums. I also love artistic collaborations. Currently, I am very much into fine art photography and fashion as my new experimental mediums. 

Last year I had the pleasure to collaborate with the American fashion brand "Call to Love" and work with multiple photographers to showcase the new collection using my artistic story-telling, circus & dance, and unusual locations (In the South of France).   

This year I am collaborating with a fashion designer to create a Japanese-inspired wedding dress for myself (think contemporary kimono meets wedding dress). I have chosen a beautiful material with an abstract Japanese calligraphy motif which I want to hand-paint after the wedding. It's very exciting, and I am really enjoying the process. It works with different parts of my creativity.

Do you miss in person exhibitions or do you find new stimulus and motivation from the shift to digital exhibitions? How did you adapt your work to the online presentations over the last year?

I try to embrace both, to be honest. For me, live performances and art exhibitions are much more powerful and richer when experienced in person - digital initiatives in current forms don't come near it, unfortunately. I did a few digital exhibitions last year; however, I found that I missed seeing the audience in front of me, meeting other artists in person, and, most importantly, seeing the artworks up close with my own eyes (not on the screen).

Having said that, there were certain aspects of the digital shift that I really enjoyed. As a viewer, I was able to see performances streamed from theatres in New York and Tokyo in my living room without travelling anywhere. I have seen some digital art exhibitions, too, but sadly for me, the current technology limits its full potential (I found the experience more frustrating than stimulating - staring at the screen and spending most of the time clicking the cursor to zoom in and out). I am waiting for technology in the art to go more mainstream so we can all could put a virtual headset on and walk into a digital gallery of our choice to see the art in front of us.

As an artist presenting my work, I launched my new website and my online shop. I also became more active on Instagram, especially with videos. I discovered that I really enjoy creating artistic videos and, in general, working with a video as a new medium. 

Do you have any upcoming shows or collaborations you are looking forward to? 

I am very excited to expand my painting portfolio with a new series of large-scale abstract paintings and my own NFT. After a visit to Miami in late 2021, I was completed blown away by the potential of art & technology. I am currently in the early stages of transforming one of my abstract paintings, "The Sweet Light of Imagination," into an interactive digital work that can travel to multiple locations. I want the users to engage their imagination when interacting with it, being able to touch, change its forms and colours and generally awaken the wonder of creativity within themselves. 
The above are stepping stones toward my very first solo show, an immersive experience transforming a viewer into a world of nature with large-scale abstract paintings and digital works. As for performance work, I am working on a new live act integrating theatrical storytelling with live Zen painting from an aerial hoop. I am speaking with multiple venues to secure a location. I am very excited to see where this will take me.

Finally, what are your plans for 2022 and for the future in general?

Apart from the above-mentioned projects, I am also a creator of the art house concept, which I am planning to grow this year and beyond. After leaving the hotel world and becoming an artist, one of my dreams was to create an immersive and mind-stimulating art place for people to stay in. Over the last 4 years, I have been running a prototype of this - an art-house Airbnb with a Japanese twist in Lincoln, UK. This year, my partner and I are opening a second property in Lincoln in a big Victorian townhouse with loads of space for amazing artworks that will stimulate guests on many levels. We invite all the readers to come and try it with a 10% discount for direct bookings if they mention "Al-Tiba9 Magazine". If this goes well, we hope to carry the concept of the art house to France, where we are planning to move in the near future.