Kasia Kalua Krynska: Inner Space
© Kasia Kalua Krynska
Eye To Eye
The photographic works of Kasia Kalua Krynska, a photographer living in Poland, offers the viewer and this author, some interesting interpretative challenges. First, to see both bodies of work, “Between Two Moons” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, as connected, not as isolated images or as separate projcts, but as a collective, a singularity. Second, to place her images in a social and historical narrative of picture making.
Placing the series “Between Two Moons” within an historical technological context, the collodion image along with the ambrotype, tintype and daguerreotype, were mid to late nineteenth century photographic processes. The image-making process of the day required a trained technician and a patient subject; a patience that required more than a few seconds of no movement to make the required exposure and generate the desired result. In current photographic practice this is referred to and taught as an “alternative processes”. (At some schools of photography, traditional darkroom work is now referred to as “alternative processing”.) It was the beginning of the popularized recorded image producing portraits and records of material wealth at an affordable price to the general population. The process itself required in the beginning, as a result of slow light sensitive materials, a head brace holding the subject in one position for long exposures, many moments, producing an airy or unworldly stare and presence.
Example: ambrotype, tintype and daguerreotype. Google search result 12 September 2021
As compared to contemporary photography, analog and digital, the moment is within hundreds of a second. The image-maker waits for the right expression, a moment to be recorded, producing the desired results. The resulting image is the result of an informed decision, not a decisive moment. We see this difference in the two series exhibited here.
In “Between Two Moons” what appears to be a deep and searching stare into outer and inner space, invites the viewer to sense or feel that they are looking into the soul of the subject. The important word here is “feel”. Krynska’s expert handling of materials and subject smoothly manipulates our feelings of otherness and emotional engagement. We are drawn into feelings of desires and fears. Some may suggest that the feelings we impose upon these images mirror the other within us. In this interaction between image and viewer is the experience of the text, allowing the viewer to construct their own meanings and interpretations. By engaging Krynska’s coded imagery the reader of her text (image as text) addresses the symbolic, imaginary and the real. Her work draws from the iconic, experienced or imagined. The look, the ideas, the timelessness of the gaze is all drawn from outside the image, from other social texts, providing an experience for the viewer that engages in a personal dialog, an empathy (as seen in “Big Girls Don’t Cry”). The images displayed in this series tend to reinforce and encourage the viewer to experience, to look inside and feel: it is not documentary or analytic but emotional. In other words, the work is not a report on the external world but is a passage way for reflection and empathy. (Here Freud’s theory of dreams and Lacan’s mirror invites us to consider the workings of our unconsciousness.) The meaning of “Between Two Moons”, as with all images, lies not within the image but within the experience of the image: a dialog between the image and the viewer creating the experience. (image: © Kasia Kalua Krynska)
The second body of work in the exhibition, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” invites us to consider memories and emotions that are shared across time. Here the author combines gestures and selective focus allowing the reader to empathize and to engage past experiences of loss and pain, to personalize. Time and time again we read into the image a sense of loss and sadness, as well as contemplation. I need to note that the meaning of the image, of any image, is not in the image but in the exchange between the visual text and its reader. The image means nothing until it is imposed upon by a viewer.
It is the eye that assumes and draws our attention, except for one image. This image shows a young women/girl in the foreground and then again in a mirror reflection with an older women. It is as if the women is talking to the girl, and in the context of “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, is telling her that the future will be good. (actually it is the photographer in the reflection, imposing her presence, her existence.) For me the signification of these images is that they draw upon our personal experiences that have moved us to an emotional brink. Something we have all experienced. Kasia does not answer any questions for us concerning deep personal reflection, for she leaves that to the viewer.
The two series in VASA Exhibitions on display refer to difference in processes and content; the two bodies of work morph and transform through the subjectivity of the work. Her images move us deeper, past the surface of content to an emotional reflection and narrative. Looking into the eyes, an invitation we cannot refuse, we begin to reveal some of our own deeper meanings and experiences. It is as if we are looking into the soul of the other, while all along it is our soul. (image: © Kasia Kalua Krynska)
© Roberto Muffoletto 2021
I can not end this text without referring to a 1962 musical hit by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons: Big Girls Don’t Cry (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAgQIb77UhU) .
Image: Screen grab, Youtube 14 September 1921