I am an artist enthralled with female narratives and aesthetics of absence.

Women that I am exceedingly drawn to often happen to be nomads, lone female venturers, visitants. As they move through time and places I grasp their image to create a space for them to reappear. Again and again, they come as half blurred memories, passers-by from the moment in time.

I look at the dress as the memory of the absent. Dresses, that I consider to be the ultimate female garments, form their own visual language -- the feminine sartorial language that speaks of identity, empowerment, and allure. In the absence of the wearer, the dress speaks of non appearance. In the absence of the wearer, the dress forms the only portrait that remains.

My work has an intermediary power between entities: past and present, photography and painting. Foremothers uncovered through collecting vintage photographs entice me from the past with their mystery and untold stories, yet all I am left with is an orphan image. By way of painting I reclaim their stories. The images of my contemporaries become the studies in emotional landscape.
My paintings however, unlike the photographs, don’t freeze time, they recycle it over.

I trust that an artist is also somewhat of an archivist,
the bearer of the past that holds the key to the future.

Sylvia Batycka

“Art is a meta-language, with the help of which people try to communicate with one another; to impart information about themselves and assimilate the experience of others. (…)
Self-expression is meaningless unless it meets with a response.”

Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time