1000 BREATH PAINTINGS + SCULPTURES

Contemporary artists Carlo Brandelli and Ewa Wilczynski’s 1000 Breath Paintings + Sculptures came after a testing time, earlier this year when we were still locked in and forced to pause our busy lives as we’d always known them. Like most, this has brought the two artists closer to the present. Less distracted, they’ve paid attention to something that’s so easily forgettable: conscious breathing.

After a deep breath, Wilczynski painted a single gold brush stroke on a canvas as she exhaled. That very act of painting this solitary line became ceremonial for the artist, and it has been repeated a thousand times in total.

Now completed, in some works the painted line has been removed from the canvas and ended becoming a sculpture, allowing the viewer to hold the breath of the artist in their own hands. By materialising the passing of time, the duo hopes to show how everyone’s breathing is a subtle yet fundamental life force permeating us all to be in sync with ourselves, and with what we’re meant to do.

1000 Breath Paintings + Sculptures is now being exhibited at the Volumnia Gallery until December 30th, 2021.

Carlo Brandelli

Ewa Wilczynski