Tales of the unexpected

In April this year, Taylor & Francis Online published a research article claiming that high numbers of Nobel Prize winners are polymaths (people who know a lot about many different subjects). ‘Nobel laureates often describe their polymathy as a conscious choice to optimise creative potential,’ wrote Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein. The paper suggested that when these super-smart individuals explore multiple disciplines it enables them to identify problems, transfer skills from one field to another and, arguably, reach higher levels of creativity than those who specialise in just one subject.

I was thinking about this as I sat down to chat to multi-disciplinary artist Karolina Skorek a few weeks ago. Karolina has a background in glass design, but she also specialises in painting, digital art, traditional etching and, of course, photography. Much of her beautiful, surrealist work has, Netflix, and . Karolina approaches each project by first considering which medium will suit the message best, and there’s no doubt that one passion feeds and fuels another. ‘My experience with glass has definitely played a role in my photography, because it taught me how to see light,’ she reveals. ‘It also helped me to develop 3D thinking. I’m a sculptor in a way – when I have a scene in my head, I can twist it and try to figure out the right angle. It’s a 3D approach to composition and planning.’