Krystyna Burczyk

Statement

My Twirls are closed forms based on polyhedral structures and constructed with small parts. I give them personality through color, texture, and curves. They are infused with my feelings, the surrounding world, and the passage of time, which provide aesthetics and beauty. Conical spirals common for all of my Twirls create vortexes corresponding either to faces or to vertices of a polyhedron, depending on the interpretation of a specific structure. Every Twirl tells its own story about the day it was born, the paper, and the passion with which it was created. It has no self-awareness, but lives as part of my ego. Twirls behave as organic forms, using the tension and friction of paper to fight against external forces that seek to degrade them.

Artworks

This artwork is a part of my Virus project, which I initiated in 2017 along with my attempt to deal with more complicated polyhedral structures, such as Goldberg solids. My process involves decomposition of large sheets of paper with unique patterns and color schemes into small rectangles, and, after this transformation (folding, twisting), composing them into new structures.. A straight line, a curve, a concave surface, a convex surface, an inflection point - these are my means of expression. The paper surface changes with every subsequent fold, with lines, curves, layers, and shadows emerging in each step. This artwork was created at the peak of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.

The creases and spirals transform the flat sheets of paper into spatial shapes, which join only by means of the elasticity and frictional properties of the paper. This artwork is a part of my Virus project. The structure is based on the Goldberg polyhedron [2,1], but the finished model is more complex as spirals create new polygons. Although the needs and aesthetics of humans and viruses are different, forces binding smaller pieces into a large stable structure result in surprisingly similar effects. Different types of bonds (either forces of paper or chemical bonds between proteins), multiple similar elements, and the need for balance and stability lead to similar structures for Twirls in the macro-scale and viruses in the micro scale.