“I have been challenging my ways of thinking and creating art. I want to take my art to a whole other level expanding the boundaries of what the work of art could be.”
Daria Zapala aka Pala Island is a contemporary visual artist who works in painting, printmaking and multimedia. Her practice demonstrates a continued interest in the concept of semiotics, process painting and theory of sound.
Daria received her MA in Printmaking from the University of Opole, Institute of Fine Arts, Poland. In September 2020, Daria took further training at the Glasgow School of Art with Masters in Letters in Fine Art Painting, where she was awarded The Ranald & Jennifer May Postgraduate Painting Scholarship.
She has worked for several arts organisations, including Glasgow Print Studio, Gallery of Modern Art and The Centre for Contemporary Arts.
The artist has exhibited widely both in the UK and overseas.
Zapala draws from animal symbolism and signage hidden within tribal meanings and rituals calling upon our connection to this planet and nature. By referring to animal symbolism, she uses brush painting techniques to capture the hope and strength that the animal represents in an abstract matter. It's not the repeated image central to each painting but rather the process of reflecting on the events and objects that led her to it. This way, the artist uses her feelings or personal view to express herself. Her philosophy has evolved over the past decade. She realized that what she values the most is her way of seeing and her personal experiences. Her painting is connected to the subconscious and the uncertainty of emotions. She hopes everyone can feel their intense and different experience after seeing her artwork.
Zapala's painting is complex and a whole mosaic of visions. Passage of artistic perception and construction, certain relations of lines and colours become meaningful. Everything else is subordinated to the evocation of what is implied in these relations, omitted, distorted, added to, and transformed to convey relationships. The painter did not approach the scene with an empty mind but with a background of experiences. She evokes existential questions at the core of human existence "how to navigate in this life". She asks audiences to look beyond the surface, beyond the boundaries of perception, to find deeper psychological meanings. The same word, "symbol", is used to designate expressions of abstract thought, as in mathematics and such things as a flag and a crucifix embodying deep social value and the meaning of historic faith and technological creed.
Her generous incorporation of aspects of her world that whatever pertains to her is of universal human experience. Paintings invite viewers to participate in a conceptual activity and an ongoing becoming by collaborating with the many semiotic references these works address and the different forces they embody. Artful arrangements bespeak a range of vital rhythms, testifying to the artist's sophisticated knowledge of modern art. Families of colour resonate with one another to produce visual chords. These works contain everything you associate with Zapala as a great artist, making it entirely emotional and visceral through painting and mark-making. Methodology lies in the process-painting, which makes the experience of painting more important than the outcome.
Zapala's work represents a remarkable allegory of both art and life, where painting connects her work with the outside world, making those distinctive and highly personal.
Daria Zapala lives in Glasgow, Scotland.