Jessica Zawadowicz: Cycles of Change
Jessica Zawadowicz is known for for her vibrant, impressionist landscapes that draw upon her personal thoughts and experiences. Viewing art as a tool for healing and self-exploration, Jessica immerses herself in the landscape to gather inspiration for her work and to reflect upon the relationship between humanity and the environment.
Tell me about your background and where your creative journey began.
My development as an artist began somewhat unexpectedly, when during my first year of college two friends passed away by suicide. The shock of death, coupled with the confusion of how two people whom many thought were okay were in fact not, I was immediately confronted with my own unconscious fears. I began to witness how these belief systems, in their rigidity, limited me from experiencing life beyond my assumed role. I quit my collegiate basketball team and shortly thereafter left school, utilizing painting as a means for self healing and non-verbal exploration. It was the beginning of truly finding out who I was that coincided with my beginning in art-making.
Where do you find inspiration for your work, and what led you to primarily focus on landscape?
I find a great deal of inspiration from observing and contemplating the natural world. When I sit or walk quietly alone in nature, I learn something from the trees or the animals or the flowers. The more that I watch, the more I notice that the trees are in allowance of the direction of their growth, and the flowers are not trying to live forever. When I’m in these natural, often green, and always alive spaces; either in the park, by the ocean, or in the woods, I feel a greater connectedness to my body, my breath, other people, and the silence of a moment. Things that seem important become less so and certain sensations that were overlooked arise as priorities. I look towards these cycles of change and subtle shifts existing in the physical and inner realms.
I started to focus on landscape within the last year and half, shifting away from almost entirely figurative painting and self-portraiture. I think the move from figure to landscape parallels my own life in a lot of ways, a sort of expansion in my perception. I’m looking outside and around more, and I’m seeing how the external can reflect back our individual and collective states of being. I’m wanting to investigate this relationship between our energetic and physical worlds, and the connection between thought and form. I’m fascinated by the transience of nature including cycles of life, death, and rebirth. I think there is something very exciting in how both assertion and surrender occur simultaneously in nature. It is this push and pull, weaving together of permanence and fleeting that I most enjoy. I think about painting in a similar way that I think about humans and psychology. I’m very curious as to how we as individuals and as a collective perceive our reality, and how we interact with our internal space. I use painting as a way of understanding / grasping / exploring / and playing with that curiosity. So in a way, the move towards landscape came quite naturally (pun intended).
Your color palette is composed of vivid pink, yellow and green hues. What role does color play in your work?
Color is a way that I connect to and convey emotion. It’s also a way that I have fun with painting. I’m hoping to communicate a playful environment to the viewer, and if only for a moment, hold a space for joyful contemplation. I use a lot of bright and highly saturated hues, but despite their intensity (though maybe because of it), I find the loudness to be a type of mediation. It sort of demands my attention without demanding too hard.
How has your work shifted and evolved over time?
My work was very figurative for a few years, almost everything that I painted was in one way or another a picture of myself. In many of these portraits I was exploring looking back at oneself. They were an attempt to mirror hidden areas of my psyche through a shared gaze between the painted figure and the viewer. Though the figure is not a current focus, I am still thinking about this kind of inner looking and seeing. Now I am just also thinking about the outside. I like to combine and merge aspects of my imagination with the natural, physical environment. Many of the landscape paintings are pulling from what is seen in a literal sense, but I also try to play with the idea of something. The idea of a tree, or the sky, maybe a river, what does the idea feel like? I’m curious as to how our perception might affect or influence our capacity to see. Are we interacting with what is in front of us, or with our idea of what is in front of us. I also incorporate the act of play more into my practice.
What does a typical day in the studio look like for you, and how has your art practice grown or changed?
I prefer to paint in shorter sessions throughout the day. Usually first in the morning and again after the sun goes down. It helps me to have some space in between working so I can leave the studio and come back with fresh eyes and thoughts. The way that I relate to and think about making has changed. I’m working out some of my own “stuff” through painting, and now I’m embracing more of this intimacy. I’m wondering how one’s ability to be vulnerable can show up in the work, and if that is at all conveyed to the viewer. And then if so, what does that mean?
Which experiences have impacted your work as an artist?
In many ways, just being a human in 2021. Though traveling, living abroad, and experiencing and engaging with new cultures, languages, and spaces has deeply impacted both my work as an artist and myself as a person. I’ve discovered that my sense of self is more fluid than fixed, and as the environment changes, whether it be physically or linguistically, so does the self that I present to the world. This connection between the self and environment has helped inspire the transition to landscape.
How has Instagram impacted your art career?
I think that Instagram can be a great tool for connecting with artists and interesting people who might live abroad or in different cities. It has helped me make some personal connections with collectors and curators, which is always fun. Though I enjoy it more when I use it as a supplement rather than as a source.
What are your future goals and aspirations?
I’d love to be a part of or help create a center or collective that brings together art with spiritualism and focuses around community. I definitely want to keep developing and expanding my work and myself as an artist and human, and one day to live and make abroad. I’m interested in languages and psychology, so it would be fun to explore those areas further and integrate them into my practice. Calling in collaboration!
Follow Jessica on Instagram: @jessicazawadowicz
Website: www.jessicazawadowicz.com