Piotr Karpinski
everything will die nothing will die
The people living in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned
Matthew 4:16 Isaiah 9:1,2
"You know, I am asking questions;
I challenge both myself and the viewer with my photography, I like to think. Such matters are complicated and beyond our full understanding. I barely know any answers myself. I know some. I used to think that the older I got, the more I would know ... Paradoxically, the older I get, the more I question things. I feel more comfortable asking questions rather than giving answers.
no
time
no
death
So yeah, I ask questions to myself and to all who see my pictures. There was a time in my life when I got into the habit of thinking about death daily. What death is for me? (What death is for you?); What will happen when the most important person in your life dies one day? Or even what will happen to this person…you know…after (?) Maybe it’s for good? Is there a point to fear death? I tend to analyze the subject from different angles. There is a lot to consider and it can be approached in many ways. Over recent years I build up this fascination with a kind of comfortable unconsciousness of death matters. That’s why I did “Immortals”.
P.K.
27. the state of existence beyond death.
27. the new beginning.
everything disappears nothing can last
When working on the 1st picture of “I Wish You Live Forever” I had Ingmar Bergman, one of my masters, in mind. Watching his “Seventh Seal” was a point I started of bringing this series to life. How to picture Death? Bergman’s way of doing that pushed me to search for my own response. It started as a fiction fed on my fascinations and fears. The project developed from fiction towards photographing the darker part of reality around me when Death knocked on the doors of my own home. Death stepped into my fantasy stories ruling the last two pictures of the series and opened chapter “Post Mortem Home Visits”. I thought that I was doing a project about the fear of death in general when starting. The events which took place in my home changed what the project means for me and made me realize what was it about from the very beginning (…).
5 portraits from “I Wish You Live Forever” were shot in churches between 2015-2018 on a medium format film camera and are titled “Woman in the Church No.1” with consecutive numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 0.
the end is the new beginning the beginning is the end
Should you fear your death or the death of what you love?
The shadow is a fictional subject and a Death allegory. It is my shadow. The shadow is of my own body with the source of light behind me. I photograph other people but I take pictures about
I want to be in the picture. I love this game.
The events opened “Post Mortem Home Visits“
January 2018. Just after the first Christmas without him. Around 7 months after his death - that was the start of the series.
Is your death just an illusion?
“Immortals” is inspired by the theme of a Baby Jesus Sleeping developed in iconography during the 17th century. The counterpoint between the beginning and the end of life was then bound together with the theme of Vanitas. The sleep of the infant Jesus symbolized the sleep of death and prefigured his future death and martyrdom. My approach is a reference to both a future death as well as the state of being unconscious to mortality issues in the early years of childhood. Their sleep is a symbol of their unawareness. I was photographing toddlers at the age when they start to understand what life is about, yet feeling immortal thanks to the comfortable unfamiliarity with mortal matters.
I find this phenomenon fascinating.
I sometimes feel like photographing ideas rather than people.
I think of these portraits as emotional landscapes.
“Let’s Talk about Life & Death Darling” is a set of constructed portraitures on the topics of mortality, passing time, death and rebirth.
state of mind
The aim was to catch and translate them into images using other people as my canvas.
Those pictures are about both Them and Me. Those pictures are of Them and about Me.
I heard that everything is connected, interdependent and that we are all one so it would mean that those pictures are about you as well.
A mudra is a symbolic or ritual gesture in Hinduism and Buddhism. One of the meanings of the spiritual sign of Kartarimukha (scissors) mudra is “death”.
energy
can never be destroyed
in an object is locked
within a process is changing
"Death No.1” depicts flowers leftover on graves, captured relatively soon after funeral ceremonies.
Thinking of time and its destructive or rather, “transformative”powers was a starting point of working on this project. The fragility of life and passing time can be easily observed when having a flower as an object. I decided to photograph this object in a particular set of circumstances- in a direct context of a Human Death. This series explores my fascinations with “never”, “forever” and “always”. Observing the consequences of "time" me.
9. to unlimited extent: Never-ceasing, never-ending, never-fading, never-dying.
11. extending to the limit of the future.
9. something that always will exist.
I am just like you. Mortal. Sometimes I take pictures about it.
The fly is
“Paradise Lost No.1” is about the time which has passed and can’t be retrieved, time which is gone forever.
I was inspired by the character of the boy from The Mirror, a movie by Andrei Tarkovsky. My focus when watching a movie was drawn into the character of a boy representing memories of childhood. This project is a fiction revisiting my own childhood and comes out of nostalgia over what might be gone and lost forever.
My work is about Life and Death. I am fascinated by both.
What is always behind the image is a thought. The thoughts behind my photographs are my fascinations, fears and concerns related to existence and its ending. I use photography to record these. I am interested in the ‘memento mori’ theme.
Thinking of Time and its destructive powers is what drives my practice and shapes my ideas. I explore the notions of “never”, “forever” and “always”.
Is it lost forever, or it will happen all over again?
Work has been shot on negatives using a medium format film camera.
All prints are limited editions.
Contact me for any inquiries you might have.
I am present mostly on Instagram @karpinski_pi :
