Dorota Sak's rich creation, including varied forms of artistic
expression, is permeated by some common ideas, recurring
motives which make us treat her work as very expressive and
coherent. Such issues as transformations within the systems of
values, the idea of generationism are perceived by the artist not
only in the limited time perspective, but also in a universal way . in
the context of history of the whole culture.
She manifests such considerations in a very spectacular way,
using among others aerial light spatial forms, woven from fibres,
in which, owing to additional procedures (dyeing, decorating,
multiplication) she symbolically expresses the essential features of
some selected cultural phenomena.
The works comprising the cycles entitled Konopielki or Suknie
(Dresses) remind us of some fragments of antique sculptures,
injured by time going by, deprived of their marble materiality.
Like the other ones they last in a kind of specific timelessness and
solemnity. They are mysterious and beautiful. Konopielki consist of
more than a dozen imitations of feminine torsos made from linen
and hemp fibres in the natural colour. Their open-work forms draw
inside, into the fragile space filled by imagination. Anio.y (Angels)
have a similar expression, strengthened by skeleton constructions
made from wicker, winged forms without faces. We will discover in
them the signs of some primaeval presence, and also the echo of
suggestive religious and cultural symbols.
The works from the cycle Pret a porter, referring to the form of
clothes, are something between an imprint taken from a feminine
body and a fragment of a dress designed for this body. The forms,
subtle and sensual, were enriched by overprints, including the
artistfs portraits, being a comment to the ideology of forming the
image according to cultural conventions and the needs of the
commercial world.
At that time the cycle Femininity also came into being. Dresses
that make this cycle imitated the feminine torso in the upper part,
whereas in the lower part they radiantly spread in the shape of the
crinoline. Initially white, they were gradually enriched by decorative
overprints made on their external side. Thin red threads appeared
among white fibres, mingled into the structure. Clear emphasis on
what in a dress is external and internal, paying attention to what
makes 'the other side', what is the 'lining' made deeper sense. It
referred, among others, to the way of functioning in culture on the
one hand - the imaginary and created external image of a woman,
and on the other hand - her real, often completely different,
physical and psychical image standing behind this creation..
Generacja (Generation) was the next original realization,
presenting fifty pairs of 'trousers' dyed in tints of indigo and partly
printed. Multiplying forms, their rhythmisized character created
the impression of the 'running crowd'. The generation connection
is manifested here by the unified outfit and its colour. The external
form serves the purpose of referring to the definite viewpoint and
the system of values. The artist does not make any appraisal of it,
she only makes it present, using, as in other cases, a selected icon
appropriate for the given time.
Ten objects constituting the next artistic expression closely refer to
a biblical tale. It is Przypowie.. o pannach m.drych i g.upich
(A Parable about Wise and Foolish Maidens). Like the scrolls
from Qumran or Torah pages, dresses-scrolls unfold in front of
us, lengthened, closer rather to abstract forms. Their interiors are
covered by the text of the parable written in a suitable type. Verses
from the Bible point to the hidden meaning of the sculptures.
'Dresses' make up a pictorial equivalent of the characters of the
parable, yet they are also like a symbol of indentification with
certain culture.
Another work (that can be defined as environment) referring to
a biblical motive, is a huge project called Drzewo Życia (Tree of
Life). The composition consists of tens of three-metre-tall 'columns'.
The forms are enriched from inside by a verbal message. The
installation resembles a birch forest, and the column-trees express
the idea of duration, vitality, life. They create space embodying
Eden, they make a visual representation of the paradisiacal garden.
At that moment it is worth mentioning a small - when compared
with the size of Drzewo życia (Tree of Life) - composition which
is the object entitled Opowiem ci bajkę o błękicie (I Will Tell You
a Tale about the Blue). A sequence of 'cards' made of blue linen
are filled with orange 'verses' interwoven into the linen pages. The
whole makes a mysterious message. It might be only a record of
a beautiful fairy tale, but it might also be the history of the mankind,
preserved by means of mysterious symbols and unravelling
through the subsequent cards like the thread of life transformed
into the organic fibre.
Skąd przychodzimy? Kim jesteśmy? Dokąd zmierzamy? (Where
are we from? Who are we? Where are we heading for?) It is the
title of a work presenting a few hundred pairs of 'shoes': white, red
and in the natural colour of yarn. The motif of 'shoes' is the strongest
expression of the idea of marching, a road, a journey through
time, and thanks to multiplication also the motive of a crowd,
community, which - despite our individuality - we are a part of.
The aspect of belonging to a generation and the mass character
seem to include every existence into the collective cultural space.
We are attributed to the land, symbols, tradition, common fate.
The subtle, limited colour scale predominates the domain of fibre
and fabric. The distinctness of hues, the differentiation of size of
colourful accents, the character of the nerve system of colourful
patches, patterns become a tool of rhythmisizing of a group
of objects. The line is the element organizing movement (like in
Dorota Sak's painting): liberated from rigorous thinking, moved,
freely rising and declining, bringing in the value of limitedness.
It is particularly visible in the compositions made from wicker. The
material itself, because of its character, brings associations relating
to the idea of reviving, vitality. Thanks to their organic form,
flexibility and mobility some works set in their natural surrounding
and they become the integral part of it. The others, staying in
contrast to e.g. the austere concrete background confirm the
existence of the continuous conflict between what is alive and
organic and what is artificial and dead.
In Parawany (Screens), among rhythmically composed sequences
of wicker lines, overprints with the artist's portraits appear again,
being a kind of ironical (and self-ironical) comment on the subject
of the character of contemporary culture, full of pretence and self-
-creation.
The artist use
s wicker in various ways, creating unconventional
compositions where planes are built from single - treated as linear
elements - twigs, or on another occasion from their tiny sections,
and also from spirally rolled up strands of wicker bark, which
evokes considerations on time going by and its structure.
Dorota Sak often emphasizes mutual relationships between the
elements of various areas of art she is concerned with. Many of her
compositions made of wicker (like the works created from linen
textile fibre) show the relationships with the art of clothes design,
particularly when the artist uses the textile weave. Sometimes,
using her knowledge of constructing and modelling, she creates
linen and wicker objects referring in their form to the shape of
clothes. The presence of the idea of fabric and fibre - not only in
their physical aspect but also in their symbolic sense as a nerve,
the circulation of blood, the expression of values, feelings and
emotions - is the essential element joining the subsequent cycles
of Dorota Sak's works.
The artist's connections with the world of fabric and clothes
design are very close and varied - she runs the Studio of Shaping
the Form of Clothes at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, she takes
part in research projects, she designs for the industrial production
and for individual unique collections.
From the very beginning the artist assumed that she was interested
not only in the issues of designing and modelling clothes, their
functional aspects, but also, or perhaps first of all, in the artistic
aspect, using the constructional elements for emphasising the
visual element in a disign. As a result of this way of thinking
the characteristic feature of Dorota Sak's clothes is their great
aesthetical value, simplicity and elegance, avoidance of excessive
decorativeness, putting stress on the elements representing the
idea on which a given project is based.
And here, like in the process of constructing spatial forms, the artist
relies on the natural material, she clearly defines the colour scale,
often appealing to the organic aspect in colour. In the projects,
like in the compositions from linen and wicker (and also in her
paintings) the play of lines and their rhythm (the phenomenon
which is the leitmotiv of all Dorota Sak's artistic creations) is very
important. Strands of fabric, lines of cuts join one another at various
angles. Vertical lines compete with horizontal ones, diagonal lines
coincide in points, creating new plastic qualities. The effects, at the
beginning dictated by the very construction of clothes, due to the
authoress's interventions become an autonomic value, using the
source of inspiration which might be connected with e.g. some
personal experience or a specific cultural phenomenon. It links
the designing creation of clothes with Dorota Sak's other artistic
activities.
Let us mention two of her collections that just refer to some
phenomena characteristic of contemporary culture. The collection
titled Czarno-Biała (Black and White) came into being as a result
of the artist's interest in Op Art. The spectacular juxtapositions of
forms and colours typical of this artistic tendency served the artist
as a reference point to check on to what extent, in accordance
with the present cultural tendency that imposes adapting to the
currently predominating fashions and trends (also in the aspect of
appearance), they can be used for the positive deformation of the
human figure, how much the interest in the image appearing on
the surface distracts our attention from the distortions interfering
with the generally accepted canon of beauty.
The problem of creation, self-creation, cultural deception has
also become the basis for the projects under the common title
Fan Club (supported by the interventions in the area of spatial
forms). The idea was to make a collection which, being a pastiche,
would become a part of the process of creating false, artificial
authorities (like e.g. the characters in reality shows) appearing
when the process of deterioration of the system of values starts.
The artist, using her portrait - printed on fabric - referred to the Pop
Art practice that is based on multiplication and popularization of
portraits of pop culture idols. She created the collection of clothes
for various purposes - from the beach swimming costume to the
wedding dress. The colours were limited to black, white and red.
Rhythm was built not only by the series of images but also by the
sequences of letters printed on fabric.
Wiek Niewinności (Age of Innocence) is a collection that is
quietest, subtle, which is concerned with the problem of time
passing, reflected by motives associated with the return to
childhood and early youth. In the collection the artist tried to
present, using formal means of expression, the phenomenon
of elusivenes, fragility and temporariness. Colour, organic in its
character (whites, greys, greens), was very often hidden under
transparent layers of fine thin fabrics. Rhythm, so important in all
the projects, was formed by the ornament of laces, embroideries
and the arrangement of horizontal bands.
Clothes designed by Dorota Sak gradually lost their functional
character, the aesthetical and intellectual factor played more and
more significant role in them. They also gained more symbolic
meaning. They became autonomic existences seperated from
their unnecessary user. They manifested essential messages, raising
questions about time, the truth, about the essence and significance
of the phenomena which surround us, both in art and in life.
It is everyday events that should be referred to when we search for
the sources of Dorota Sak's painting creation. The artist transfers
experiences, sudden emotions and feelings into a record in which
she preserves the memory of the moment characterised by special
mood. The pretext might be a film projection, an image from a
microscope, a quiet conversation, an interesting landscape or
the metaphysical dignity of simple objects. In her works, next
to completely abstract canvases, we will notice those, in which
allusive forms, supported by the title of the work, point to the
originators of the internal necessity of creating. We will discover
the human figure outlines, the signs of things accompanying our
existence, but also the echo of suggestive religious and cultural
symbols.
In the 1990s Dorota Sak was first concerned with batik which she
gradually enriched by watercolour painting. Later on it was the
watercolour itself that served as an expression of feelings and
emotions. Batiks inspired by the art of the East were characterised
by great stylised decorativeness, vividness of colour, and at the
same time the rigour and stability of composition. Later on the
artist went to a more painterly stage of a smeared patch which
escaped beyond the frames of the drawn contour, to toned down
colours and considerably livelier forms, more freely manifesting
their ambiguity. In the presented world the geometrical figures
and their combinations were replaced by irregular quasi-organic
forms. The artist chose nature motives not only directly, but also
indirectly, recalling the historical manifestations of European art
which originated from the imitation of the world of organic forms
(the Art Nouveau motives, decorative forms of Art Deco).
In 1999 Dorota Sak came back to the oil and acrylic painting. In
the background a lot of paintings had literary or movie motives,
the world of fairy tales. The inspiration also came from real
sceneries - natural and created by man. Some compositions have
a clearly 'spatial', 'architectural' character. These forms, the kind of
independent and autonomic structures, do not aspire to give a
picture of directly observed and experienced events, being a visual
synthesis, they are only the signs of experiences.
That was also the time for paintings - exceptional in Dorota Sak's
creation - evoked by political events (the war in the Balkans). The
lines running at various angles through the whole surface of the
painting were the source of dramatism in these works. The planes
formed as a result of their intersections created a 'cracked' image,
threatened by 'deterioration'.
In the paintings made a few years later the surfaces included
between the line cross-cuts are filled with colour and tone. Similarly
to the earlier works, the lines organize the centre of the painting, but
they vanish near its edges. A cobweb woven from light, sometimes
growing into a luminist whirl, lights up compositions and creates
the depth. The works are characterised by distinct, rough texture.
Both in the abstract works and in the figuative ones (several works
had a more realistic representative character) the artist is attracted
by filling the space with various divisions, strengthening discords,
satiating with rhythm, provoking the movement of the matter.
Colour is the essential issue in Dorota Sak's works. A lot of her oil
and acrylic paintings were based on the domination of the blue
(the artist feels at ease to sail in this area) contrasted with reds
and yellows. She is not afraid of decisive, strong juxtapositions, but
she also feels equally good about introducing white and delicate,
pastel tints. Owing to applied means of expression: the discipline
of lines, the expression of colour, the suggestiveness of light, due to the
impasto technique intensifying the factural effect, the emotions
evoked by given objects and events become tangible.
A few years ago the artist started to look for some information
concerning the eastern - particularly Turkmenian - carpets. Trips
to the East, and especially the atmosphere and aesthetics of the
Ukrainian Orthodox churches became a direct impulse to paint
the cycle Rytmy czasu (Rhythms of Time). Dorota Sak covered
the surfaces of canvases with rhythmically repeated pattern, using
stencils and painting rolls. The paintings are characterized by
hot colours, the artist - following the source of inspiration - also
uses gold which in some cases makes the base of the painting.
Thanks to daring contrasts and due to the distance that is kept
between colour patches - similarly to batiks made some time
before - the painted planes pulsate, the twinkling multiplied layers
of forms and colours evoke an impression of trembling on the
surface. Patterns are multiplied, shifted, turned upside down. The
additional element of rhythm is introduced by the arrangement of
the central motive with the background - the band contrasting
by means of colour or value with the surface of the canvas; finally
the painting is divided into three vertical or horizontal planes. The
composition of works is open - motives can spread into infinity.
The result of the artist's activity is sight-disturbing, rhythmisized,
brought to abstraction, condensed painting tissue of the image.
Works based on modularity and repeatability of the motive
represent the aesthetical paradigm common for the whole Dorota
Sak's creation. In a way, owing to the basic element modification,
it is also present in the forms woven from fibres.
Rytmy czasu (Rhythms of Time) - reminding us of tapestry
paintings - are the signs of the defined culture: going away from the
image of human being, favouring the principle of abstractionism,
associated with richness of colour, hypnotic influence of vibrating
layers. Eastern carpets certainly stand behind the vivid, full of visual
splendour planes from Rytmy czasu (Rhythms of Time), but they
are also inspired by Polish Słuck sashes and a variety of colours in
the Byzantine culture. Abstract compositions recall the image of
some historical cultures with their features, such as a tendency
to exaggeration, admiration for form, fascination by exoticism.
Paradoxically they also refer to the symptoms of the recent
contemporary time, its ludic plebeian dimension, - the world of
walls painted in patterns, oil wainscots, colourful tapestries. In that
sense these original painting works complete the image which is
present in spatial forms and in fabric.
In her creation Dorota Sak continuously searches for personal
forms to express her own experience simultaneously referring to
the old cultural and civilization heritage. On the one hand her
works portray and interpret everyday objects and issues, and on
the other hand they touch general, universal problems. The artist
chooses lively, simple plastic forms, but also monumental universal
symbols. Behind the message she conveys there is a reflection of
a human being concerned about elusivenes of the majority of
everyday emotions and experience immersed in the stream of time.
