Natalia Nala Skrzypczak

Year of birth: 2004.
Where do you live: Currently in Wroclaw (Poland) as I study here.
Your education: One year ago, I started studying at The Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw at the faculty of Art Mediation. Now I am in my second year of my bachelor’s degree.
Describe your art in three words: empiricism, imperfection and haptic.
Your discipline: I can’t precise so maybe simply creation.
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You describe your work as guided by experimentation with matter and expanding media. Can you tell us about the creative process behind one of your recent pieces and how experimentation influenced the final result?

In reality, experimenting without the aim of achieving spectacular, perfect results comes to me with difficulty. By wanting every action to be as precise as humanly possible, I can’t always focus on simple actions that are intended to be enjoyable. Nevertheless, I overcome this with an equally strong desire to learn and develop, which forces me to keep testing new techniques and tools in order to expand my personal range of possibilities. Frequently, in the absence of a particular theoretical knowledge, through a simple experiment I discover new potentialities which, with the right approach, I am able to use in the final project.

How do you approach the concept of ‘common ugliness’ in your work, and how do you think this theme contributes to a deeper message?

When there is no aesthetic beauty, people seek it elsewhere, for example in what it represents. With ugliness it is easier to reach an audience and express a specific concept. If the creation is not conventionally pretty, it will be judged on its message.

Natalia Skrzypczak | Electrical Installacion | 2024

Your interest in cybernetics and futurism is clear in your works. How do these concepts influence your artistic decisions, both in terms of form and content?

I got into futurism after moving to the city centre. I currently approach these topics from a quite different perspective than I did at the beginning of my journey. I do believe that new technologies can develop art and open it up to other senses. I’m moving progressively towards digital art, but I’m still in the habit of making it at least a little bit materialised and tangible. Modern achievements in technology allow us to make art without any boundaries and we should take advantage of them as much as we can.

You mentioned that the tools you use should ‘say’ as much as the creations themselves. How do you choose your materials and tools, and what role do they play in shaping your message?

I believe that tools are not just utensils with which we can create something, but they are part of the piece that is made with them. This is demonstrated by the amount of possibilities we have to use them to articulate an emotion or a certain thought. A brush, a pencil or even an object not originally intended for art will, depending on its handling, bring a different effect and have a separate impact, just like the colours that are widely used to convey an impression.

Natalia Skrzypczak | Dać Ciała | 2023

How do you balance traditional and contemporary elements in your work, especially with such a strong focus on futurism and technology?

I was originally educated in very traditional mediums and valued realism as well as perfection the most. Relatively recently I have opened up to contemporary art which has significantly changed my perception of the world. I suppose that the traditional elements visible in my art are the remains of my old mannerism, which I have not been able to successfully eradicate from my life yet.

In one of your works, there is an intriguing use of mixed media, including electronic components. How do you decide to incorporate such unconventional elements into your art?

Works consisting of abnormal elements usually arise from being inspired by them more than from a concept. Seeing a junk deprived of its former life located in a bizarre place makes me so fascinated that I need to take it and restructure it in the way I felt when I first looked at it. Of course, not all of my assemblage artworks are created in this chronology of action, occasionally I go from sketching to gathering the necessities. I don’t lock myself into ways of depicting a particular vision, not everything needs to be painted or made from scratch by me. The use of simple objects can sometimes be more unorthodox and effective than a realistically made piece.

Natalia Skrzypczak | AUTOmatic Portrait | 2024

Futurism often deals with visions of the future. In your art, do you aim to depict an optimistic or dystopian view of what’s to come?

So far, most of my artworks have oscillated in the past tense, which has most often had a heavy, emotional impact on the near present. At the moment, I am trying to deal with more universal issues and treat art as a more abstract form of scientific research, so I believe that the next creations will be more focused on the current time or will drift into an undefined space. For the time being, I don’t think of acting as a prophet yet, and I can only consider the themes of the future as a form of creation.