 In 1920, two German artists– George Grosz and John Heartfield– made a sign promoting a new kind of commercial illustration style that was quickly becoming more popular than their parents’ art.
The sign read, “Art is Dead.”
Some believe art has not risen, but one local artist refuses to pull the plug. Irina Krawitz, of Wilkes-Barre, said she believes art is dead, yet she braved some intimidating odds to still call herself an artist. Krawitz emigrated from Russia to the United States in 1992. She left her mother country after police had threatened to arrest her for hosting artists’ gatherings in her home.
“I had friends. They would come over and play music and show their talents,” Krawitz said. “We would do this all the time, but then the police would come and tell us to stop it.”
Soviet control began to flounder in the late 1980s and Gorbachev’s reforms had been loosening the government’s censorship grip; still, Krawitz faced imprisonment if she did not end her gatherings.
Krawitz now lives and works stateside, continuing her work and promoting it where she can.
In October, she took pieces to an international artists’ exhibit at New York City’s New Century Artists Gallery. Diana Bekkerman, who worked as one of the exhibit’s curators, said Krawitz’s work sparked good responses from the spectators.
“I think people are amazed at her technique. She uses fabrics and they have a special feel,” she said.
Krawitz calls herself a painter, but her medium leans more toward collage– though from a distance one might not notice a difference. She uses paste to create images with fabric scraps and magazine clippings.
Bekkerman said she thought the crowds reacted best to the unconventionality of it all.
Kathleen Godwin, founder of the Arts YOUniverse center on Franklin Street, Wilkes-Barre, said Krawitz found color in the scraps when she could not afford to buy paint, but the work’s quality was certainly uncompromised; in fact, it was probably enhanced.
Godwin said Krawitz, who was one of the first resident artists five years ago, paints meaning into her pieces using not just the color from magazine clippings, but also the words. She does not limit using scraps to color. Krawitz puts as much thought into selecting her canvas. She said the surface she paints on is sometimes as important as the colors that go on it. Her art draws attention and is full of creative inspiration, but Krawitz credits her creativity, and also her reason for staying in the States, to her strong faith in God.
She said she fulfilled a need to find God when she moved here.
“It was meant to be,” she said.
Now, in Russia, the government pays artists and Russians appreciate artists more. In the U.S., Krawitz said she does not make money from her paintings; still, she stays on.
“Art is like food for my soul,” Krawitz said.
She believes God and humans communicate through art, and by better understanding one’s purpose for making art, one can learn to understand God.
Krawitz also said an artist should take time to stop thinking and spend more time feeling.
“You don’t hear (God) with your ears. In order to hear God, you have to open your heart,” she said.
She hoped she carried that message to the New York City international art show, where she wanted to remind the artists that, although art may be dead, it does not have to stay dead; and, with heart and conviction, they can revive it.
“One word to describe her is indomitable,” Godwin said.
Some of Krawitz’s pieces are on display at Arts YOUniverse. One larger piece sits on a balcony. Godwin said, up close, it looks like a tangled heap of color, but after stepping back and looking at it from the floor, the colors blend to form a striking image.
“The most beautiful things, you have to see from a distance,” Krawitz said.
She said she learned to appreciate distance after living in the United States, so far from her homeland.
“Now, being so far from my Russia, I see things differently,” she said.
She said looking at the small details up close makes you forget how unimportant they are. Now, she sees Russia like it is a beautiful image in which the small details only add to the whole.
Krawitz is currently working to open a boutique inside the Arts Seen Gallery on Public Square. In addition to art, she is also a talented seamstress and, until recently, has designed clothing and handbags only as a hobby, which she gives as gifts. |
