"My main interest lies in exploring the problem and application of illusion and visual perception. Illusion has a paradoxical effect of deceiving and confusing but at the very same time giving us an idea of how reality is made – knowing what an illusion is, by opposition allows us to know what is not illusionary, where it ends and reality begins. Confusing and blurring the boundaries between things/states that we take for granted helps us to understand them. By crossing the boundary we are able to see it and grasp the source of sense of ambiguity and unease that comes with being the subject of illusionary practice – such as art. Exploring the boundaries between various forms and dimensions - the viewer and the subject; the object and its surroundings and ultimately between the reality and our perception of it - is what I seek and aim at in my practice. This is why I am so interested in transitions - from drawing into sculpture, from shade, light or liquid into solid and material form, from two-dimensional surface, to three-dimensional space. I focus on the human and especially female body as the essence of three-dimensional entity, as a source of life and non-abstract form to contrast it with more fragile, abstract, delicate and superficial material such as paper or wax."
Depta-Garapich centers her sculptural work on desirable tactility as a method of consuming the viewer and illuminating them to the problems of illusion and visual perception in the process. Through abstraction and illusion the viewer is given the opportunity to gain an understanding into the fabric of reality, in being confronted by its opposite. By also using the uncanny, such as anthropomorphic parts hung on doors which in the process humanizes and co-opts them into the sculpted space, Depta-Garapich leaves the viewer searching for meaning and in doing so makes them access their identity in order to make sense of the objects. Paper and wax is transformed into male and female parts through human perception and the fragile material disturbs covert fetishes that underwrite our desire.
Born 1973, Krakow, Poland. Lives in London, UK
Education:
MA Fine Art, Slade School of Art, London, UK (present)
BA (Hons) Fine Art, Wimbledon College of Art, London, UK
MA HIstory of Art, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
Selected projects:
2011, Slade Interim Show, Slade School of Fine Art, London, UK
2011, Jerwood Drawing Prize, Jerwood Space, London, UK
2010, Young Polish Art_Metal, Metal Chalkwell Hall, Southend
2010, Volume and Void, Wimbledon College of Art, London, UK
2010, Taking a Line for a Walk, Sculpture Project Space, London, UK
