Lea Laboy

The world is constantly changing and the face of painting with it. Successive generations of painters pass away, and with them styles and aesthetic norms. The painting techniques used are disappearing. Painting that uses means such as colorful spots and lines seems to an increasing number of recipients to be "out of fashion" or even "out of date". Over the years, other forms of artistic expression have emerged, such as digital painting and painting generated by artificial intelligence, which by their very existence devalue traditional painting. Are we witnessing the twilight of painting? Are contemporary painters among the last generations of painters? I ask myself this question as a painter who decided to go back in time in search of the "golden mean" in painting, and also as a painter who shares the same concern as the fellow painters. Perhaps the answer is yes. The painter's place is changing, he/she is no longer behind the easel but in front of it. He/she demonstrates oneself, not one’s paintings. He/she becomes a monkey who not only has to jump as the "audience" wants, but also "apes" other artists who were told "nice". We enter the Art Gallery and see the same paintings, differing only by the artist's signature. On the walls, there are portraits of women painted from fashion magazines, usually dripping with "something". Portraits of animals, most often cats, resembling colorful stained glass windows. Ballerinas, but having nothing in common with the beautiful, well-balanced Dega dancers. Projectors have replaced sketchbooks, screens, canvas and paper. Everything is so "nice" that it becomes common and indifferent. Boring. How many faces without facial expressions can you see at one exhibition? One wonders why artists who are interested in portraiture do not reach for the works of Boznańska, who was a master in this field. It is not the artist who painted the eye being the perfect portraitist, but the one who painted the "look", because only he/she captured the nature of the subject. To understand this, you cannot be led by public opinion, neither as a painter nor as a viewer. It is a profanation to equate traditional painting with digitally generated painting. Yes, painting generated by artificial intelligence is "nice", but traditional painting is "excellent" and this huge difference in terms of quality. In relation to painting, the disastrous words "nice" were "sown" because in fact only something that deviates from this definition can fully deserve this name. It is enough to recall, for example, Turpism, which focused only on ugliness. So ugly that it is not pretty but beautiful, because beauty is not perfection, but everything that reaches this border but does not exceed it, and this can only be done by a human being - a painter who can see beauty there, where other people or artificial intelligence will not find it. Contrary to the general trend of promoting digital painting and painting generated by AI, I decided to break away from this system by showing traditional painting that takes your breath away, waking us from the stagnation of the surrounding reality. Have you ever looked at the scissors lying on your desk and thought how incredibly beautiful they are? Have you ever thought that their shadow is an element that complements them and creates their place in space? Have you ever admired fading flowers and seen how the passage of time has given them a new color quality? Have you stopped to see how the trees wave under the direction of the wind? After all, when you read the Quora code, did you think that you were like a bag of chips that the store clerk reads with a scanner? And you asked yourself why? This is the nature of true painting, to "see" what others cannot see and raise it to the rank of art. I am extremely honored and touched that I managed to invite such outstanding and talented painters to my project who, with every touch of a brush, change our "perception" of the world, giving thus the definition of beauty in painting and showing us its essence. I invite you to enter this extraordinary world of traditional painting and enjoy it. At the same time, I leave an open invitation to all painters who have made painting the epicenter of their lives. As the originator of the project, I would like to emphasize one more important thing that also guided my project, individualism and therefore diversity are important in painting. Individualism and diversity are revealed most fully, surrounded by the works of other painters, which is obvious to me as a painter. And this is also the point of my project, to show that artists can create a new quality in a joint project, while remaining completely individual. Each painter is one unique star, but let's remember that the beauty of the night sky is revealed to us only when it is full of stars.

Khamails – Manuscript – Lea LaboyHand sewn book/waxed pages/24 karat gold/silk/amaranth dye