Interview with Daria Solar
Daria Solar is a figurative artist painting in the traditional oil technique. The artist’s key theme, called “Electric: Beings,” portrays neo-human, cyborg-like protagonists surrounded by empty spaces creating the sense of solitude. Her “Digital Landscapes” take her audience into the micro-world of computer hardware, and finally her “Mythology Reinvented” series portrays ancient gods and goddesses in new contexts. Daria is one of the artists from the Oscar nominated “Loving Vincent" film crew. She lives and works in Lodz, Poland.
STATEMENT
A technological symbolist exploring human relationship with artificial intelligence and creating mysterious hardware landscapes.
BIO HIGHLIGHTS
WMOCA IBPC, Wausau, USA, 2021
Health and the Climate & Ecological Emergency Exhibition, London, UK, 2021
Q&A
What role does your artwork have in society? My artworks are all about society. I comment on the social challenges related to omnipresent technology and point to some threats. Visitors to my exhibitions leave the galleries silently, pondering over what they have seen and drawing their conclusions. I comment on the challenges of today, that if not met, will become a burden for the future generations.
What is your ultimate goal for your artwork?
Well, I want my work to contribute to the security and well-being of the future generations in a sense that I am trying to prevent certain processes of further mind control and total surveillance combined with inescapable disinformation. I want my paintings to be as clear and understandable as possible, possibly able to convey the message within the 3 seconds attention span that most internet users have. I am a Polish artist so I have a dream to become the cover artist of a XXI century art catalogue printed in the year 2100, funny as this may seem as I will be long gone by then. I believe that what I do will be best understood by the future generations that will be forced to fight against the threats I am warning about already.
Explain your process.
It starts with an idea. Apart from my military experience, I am a user of websites such as "MIT technology review", "IFL Science" which bring my daily dose of technological news about the latest achievements of human creativity as well as of threats. I read books on science by eg. Juval Harrari or Stephen Hawking or a Polish author of "Kwantechizm", a book on quantum physics, professor Andrzej Dragan. Based on the intriguing content the ideas just come by themselves.
All I need to do is to grab a sketchbook and make a quick drawing of a basic idea, explaining the details I need to add to the design as points to remember. later I need to find a model to pose for the painting. Usually I wait until I have a collection of at least 10 ideas before organizing a photo session with a model in a nearby photo studio. I have three models that I usually work with, so I change both bodies and faces of my models to fit the designs. I collect artefacts or prompts I need to add to the painting and then take photos of my models. Usually there are a lot more photos so I keep them in case I have other ideas, then I start designing, usually using photoshop to combine the e.g. cables and the humans. When I am satisfied with the design, I buy a canvas and start working, starting from a properly coloured gesso, sketch using a thin marker, then grisaille, and then layer upon layer of semi-transparent paint until I am happy with the result.
Sometimes it takes months to finish a painting. Regarding my digital landscapes, well I have quite a good understanding of the process of data analysis, programming and also hardware as I spent 13 years teaching English of IT at a Computer College in my city. So these machines are not a secret to me, I understand the basis of their operation. Here I collect old motherboards and especially graphic cards. Arrange special 'landscape like' spaces to photograph them in, and use micro photography rings to get the depth effects in the photos. Once I have the photos, I edit them, select the best bits and ...well.. spoil everything by painting them my slightly impressionist way anyway.
Which was your breakthrough piece? Tell us more about it.
Virtual Boy. This is my milestone painting from my Digital: Beings collection. It inspired the whole series of works that are now my key theme. It was meant to be a warning to parents against threats of un-monitored use of the Internet, including online-paedophilia, but it turned out to summarise the whole generation of kids addicted to gaming. Quote: "This is my son!" exclaimed one of my friends. Virtual Boy started a series of symbolic pieces that portray our mental addiction to technology. My protagonists are cyborgs with bodies partly human, partly machine, often dehumanised but not powerless or lost, but potent and influential."