Fifty years of art. Fifty years of love for Barga going back to that iconic print, commissioned by Bruno Sereni, of the beautiful Borgo with its Romanesque Duomo crowning the palazzi and forming a miniature mountain. Fifty years of consummate artistry. Thankyou Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna. Thank you ‘Nick’!
Born in the warring borderland between Poland and Russia Nick’s family fled from the Red Army to find a calmer life in the USA. Here the artist developed his skills with particular emphasis on multi-plate colour etching of which he is a pioneering master.
The celebration of Nick’s half century of creative work was inaugurated yesterday at Barga’s Galleria Municipale with the artist cutting the tri-colour ribbon to his exhibition in the company of Barga’s mayor Caterina Campani and organizational colleagues Kerry Bell and Giorgia Madiai.
The sound of ‘Metamorphoses’ filled the gallery – Britten’s oboe piece inspired by Ovid. I recalled that Kraczyna’s themes comprise mythologies, transformations, magical landscapes and music itself: in 2021 I visited the artist’s exhibitions on the subject of tree-goddesses, described in my post at Tree-Goddesses | From London to La Costa (and Lucca and Beyond) Part Three (wordpress.com). Indeed, Nick declares that he is not just a landscape artist but a magical landscapist where his scenes are closely related to his inner emotions. As he says about his adopted summer residence at Barga: ‘here everything does not simply need to be seen but experienced as well.’
The artist gave us a little talk on the subject of multi-plate etching, a technique best described by the Italian word ‘Intaglio’ or ‘cutting into’ whereby it is what is removed from the plate that, filled, by coloured inks and pressed on paper, supplies the finished product. Here precision is married to inspiration for the different colour plates must integrate exactly into one other.
Barga’s Municipal gallery exhibition, which is largely didactic in approach, is just a taster for the much larger show of Nick’s work to be inaugurated at the town’s Santa Elisabetta conservatory this Sunday, 2nd July at 5 pm.
Further homages to Barga’s supreme artist will be present on the facade of the Teatro dei Differenti with a spectacular installation created from Kraczyna’s works and also, from 23 September to 31 October, at the museum of the house of poet Giovanni Pascoli
The exhibition catalogue is published by Maria Pacini Fazzi Editore.
This event was really enlightening for me as I have studied one year Art Foundation at Greenwich Community College which covers various disciplines phohotography,3D, advertising leaflets and stand, silk screen printing or serigrafia. I was delighted to learn about how to achieve multi coloured etchings as explained by the Art Master himself. It was a most fascinating evening and there is a possibility to join classes for beginners. We hope to visit the next exhibition tomorrow!. The great thing too was that Krashina was fed up with the “Uomo Morto” Mountain so he has devised the “sleeping lady” Do go see if you can spot her!
Thankyou for your interesting comment.