Renata Buziak

‘Afterimage’ presents depictions of places and occurrences experienced in my childhood. These memories stored in and recalled by memory, altered by imagination, dreams and new events -were the inspiration for this series. Memories that put a smile on my face and memories that haunt me in my dreams. These images of mundane events from childhood, events sweet and painful, breathtaking and scary, colourful and dark, helped to thread together a little journey through my early days in Poland, from a period when the passage of time, worries and concerns did not exist; or did they?

Unforgettable trips to country sites, forests and lakes; sunlight filtered through the trees and the canvas of a tent; backyard full of vegetables and fruit; the heat and smell of bonfires and hay; piles of coal and a cellar full of preserves in preparation for a long winter; long walks to school through fields covered with white crispy snow - are just a few reappearing images in my mind.

The ‘biochrome’ process, based on organic decomposition that I have been investigating for several years, was explored further to produce these images. By employing the fundamental elements of life and collaborating with nature’s processes this project explores the relationship between decomposition and recomposed memories.