22 Apr ARD 604- My personal statement

My name is Beata Skorek, I am an artist-photographer. I have also been working as a chef for many, many years. Art and cooking are my two great fascinations. As a culinary stylist, photographer and chef, I want to combine my love of art and nature. In all my artistic activities, I want to sensitize the recipient to the beauty of natural products that surround us and that nourish us. I especially like to create still-life compositions inspired by the works of 17th-century Flemish and Dutch brush masters. The captivating realism and almost photographic details of these paintings have always been close to my heart. My masters painted in such a way that when you look at their paintings, time stops and you get lost. You can look at it endlessly; you come into the picture, you are in it. It is a painted silence, a wonderful atmosphere of a home hearth. Watching these scenes, we feel the safety of an orphanage, filled with the smells of fruit, baked cake, or a meal cooked by my mother. At a time when ugliness is promoted so much, in my art I want to reflect the simple beauty of apples, pomegranates, oranges, and herbs. Through the play of natural light with vivid and beautiful colors, I want to stimulate the senses and introduce the viewer to such a harmonized world of children’s peace and home cooking. I would like everyone who views my photos to feel the taste, smell, texture, and juiciness. These stimulated senses will make the viewer smile at that memory and feeling, and when they smile, feel happy and feel better. This is especially important now, in such turbulent, stressful, and depressing times. While for over two years we have been bombarded by all the media with the image of suffering, fear, the uncertainty of tomorrow and, more recently, with the vision of war, I want my art – as in the case of Flemish painters, to bring peace, security and some kind of solace.