VARANASI

(Rower from Varanasi)

The first year in which Konopka discovers an unexpected inclination towards painting, coincides with the period of detachment from reality until recently experienced, to know himself through the journey. From the Way of Santiago, revelatory moment of his new artistic identity, he moves towards the East where he visits places that remain forever in his interior life. Varanasi work tells the enchantment he perceived in observing simple everyday life of the woman who paddles on the typical canoe with all the naturalness of those who perform that action every day, with serenity and tranquility, in the calm of having everything already sure, everything already planned, without wishing for the impossible but loving the possible. From the stylistic point of view the work is very tied to the figuration, the image is clear, even if the color, fresh, vivid and bright, already begins to tend towards Expressionism, both for the chosen tonalities and for the fast brushstroke, urgent, that fades out the contours with a linear, almost geometric yet faceted, fragmented as to want to decompose and recompose the image according to Konopka’s feeling. The scene thus appears to be moving, even if the focus is on the image of the woman who captures the attention of the observer who, a moment later, expands to everything else, from the slow river to the objects she brings with her, from the oars skillfully used to the canoe below her.

Marta Lock – art critic, novelist, aphorist, essayist, reviewer, sociopsycholog