Creative alchemy

One of the most intriguing dilemmas present in artistic reflection and practice has always been the irresolvable, energising tension between the desire to convey the spatial character of reality and the disappointing two-dimensionality of the flat painting or graphic image.

Alicja Habisiak-Matczak’s earlier works, created with various techniques and materials, were distinguished by, among other things, deep exploration of space characterised by combining within a single composition many perspectives, created from different points of view. Viewers used their imagination to fill in the lack of physical (not visual) depth. The compositions were immersive, drawing us into the depths of the created space. This tendency in her most recent works was increasingly intriguing. It was only a matter of time before we would be able to touch the worlds she created in three dimensions.

Alicja Habisiak Matczak’s latest works satisfy this need in some sense. They fulfil the desires that arose when we looked at the earlier graphic prints on the plane. The author’s new spatial objects are a series of works that transcend traditionally defined disciplinary boundaries. The works combine the value and qualities of sculpture and drawing (drawn sculptures). In these multi-element compositions, reflections of reality seen from various unusual perspectives coexist, as they do in Alicja Habisiak-Matczak’s graphics. What emerges is a multilayered and multidimensional vision of space developing in various directions, but controlled and - in accordance with the artist’s intention - homogeneous. In a way, the idea of capturing the whole is realised, but in a different way from what the representatives of the avant-garde, such as the Futurists or Cubists did.

When we try to reconstruct objects depicted in foreshortened perspective, we take steps that would bring us back to the original. In Alicja Habisiak-Matczak’s work, what we could previously only imagine can now be captured in the form of a mock-up, breaking the flatness of individual images of architectural fragments.

This is how it used to be in reconstructions of Renaissance perspective depictions. These seemingly perfect and convincing visions of reality prompted the reverse – the construction of threedimensional visions to reveal all the relations in the objects, real or imagined, which were models for paintings or engravings. Particularly fertile in this respect were the reconstructions of the chapel that Masaccio immortalised in his fresco The Holy Trinity, a work still admired today in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence.

Although Alicja Habisiak-Matczak’s compositions are made up of fragments of well-thought-out form, dimensions and assumed artistic effects resulting from the applied techniques, they encourage us to make modifications to the arrangements, to realise the effect of variability, to play – as in children’s jigsaw puzzles – with form, space and light. The way in which the objects exist is further altered by our interference, with every glance we take at the successive components of the whole. These actions, somewhat forced by the artist, show that our evaluation of space can be illusory, that its establishment depends on our point of view and the gradation of importance of the elements on which we focus our attention in the process of perception.

Like in the artist’s entire oeuvre to date, various modes of existence in space function in these works. Thanks to the use of different perspectives, the objects and their fragments rise upwards, fall down, bear down on us, run inwards and – further – swerve, are subject to circulation. The impression of the ‘curved’ space is deepened by the appropriate formation of certain planes in the objects; they have been deliberately bent by the author, reinforcing the aspect of spatiality, introducing an element of movement and dynamics.
The same qualities characterise the series of prints included in a book. Adopting this particular form of presentation for their display somehow ennobles and monumentalises the spaces enclosed in it. The author has previously made industrial architecture her subject of interest. In the Prospettive decarliane portfolio, which contains works inspired by the designs of the Italian architect Giancarlo De Carlo, that kind of architecture is the actor of the show. Thanks to its structure, which is related to the original function of the objects, it is ideal, even provokes to create visions of objects piled one above the other, exposing the effect of growth, creating almost an image of ‘flourishing architecture’1. There are numerous depictions exposing verticality, based on looks taken from below, which gives inanimate objects the dimension of giants, suddenly appearing before our eyes and growing to gigantic proportions. In the artworks, selected fragments of architecture gain the shape of pointy forms that burst into space. Through their skeletal, schematic character, they isolate from the whole the primary structural accents that make up the ‘principle’ of the composition.

The portrayed objects lose the qualities of realism and acquire an abstract quality. The black and white colour of the composition does not allow us to be distracted by less significant details – we are more struck by the constructivist aspect of the whole. The cards devoid of profusion of elements come as a surprise. Some expose only selected, individual pictorial motifs in black. They seem to be a negative complement, a continuation of the pictorial elements presented on the next card. They are an example of the use of relief printing from matrices prepared with the monotype and etching technique. The association of negative and positive renditions, the introduction of white-line versions alongside black-line ones, is very spectacular. This is the result of the artist’s attempts to use new graphic materials, technologies and techniques. These different depictions are combined within the portfolio, complementing one another and introducing additional rhythmic values, so essential for the artist’s entire oeuvre.

Further forms of expression in Alicja Habisiak-Matczak’s artwork appear when she undertook, or should we say, continued her search for new means of expression. Her research resulted, among other things, in the development of matrices made of unusual, surprising materials, additionally assigned to the ‘improper’ techniques. What is particularly striking is the use of monotype as a vehicle for creating prints, a technique so far associated with the effect of spontaneity and uniqueness. The intaglio matrix prepared using monotype allows for sophisticated, painterly effects, for emphasising drawing and graphic qualities, for enhancing the mood-forming qualities of future prints. In order to enrich textures and chiaroscuro effects, the artist combines various graphic phenomena, e.g. etched monotype with classical aquatint. This practice obviously also applies to other creative endeavours involving a variety of techniques. It is worth mentioning that the artist-researcher treats prepared matrices negatively and positively – as in intaglio and relief printing – using their diverse qualities.

The prints presented at recent exhibitions are largely the result of her research into the use of iron plates in intaglio printing2. The artist has already previously surprised with the effects achieved by the use of salt aquatint, ferro etching or ferrotint. Today, she makes graphics using, among other things, a laser. She explores the possibilities offered by the use of a spectacular method such as electroetching.

Her succeeding research and experiments are not detached from her personal creative practice, above all from the need to create expressive qualities. From the beginning, Alicja Habisiak-Matczak has strongly emphasised the advantages of differentiating textures within a graphic work. This is apparent in her artwork, and as she herself underscores, she acts here like a photographer who deliberately does not mask the blurriness of an image, she consciously exposes its graininess and roughness to enhance expressive effects. In a way, even at this stage, this corresponds to the need to go three-dimensional and achieve a result similar to the texture of a painting work. The reference to this discipline is most appropriate here. The method of preparing the complex prints resembles the traditional way of creating an image in painting. Electrolytic etching and then the application of a subsequent technique, such as hand-sprinkled aquatint, introduce different density textures into the plane, a kind of ‘underpainting’ for the motifs being worked on.

Alicja Habisiak-Matczak’s works are still, and for the most part, the author’s original architectural fantasies, synchronic depictions of places visited by her at different times and observed from different points of view, travesties of visual experiences recorded by visual means. One might think that, given the highly technical aspect of her creative practice, the artist deprives her visions of emotions that we, as viewers, might perceive.

However, it does not work that way. The originality of the imagery, developed through successive discoveries and bewitchments, underlines her personal relationship to the world depicted. The quality of dramatic tension that characterises her works is also imparted to us. We follow the artist’s clues to solve the riddles of space, rhythm and light.

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1) Analogous to Tadeusz Peiper’s literary ‘flourishing poem’. About this, for example A. Kluba, Referencyjność i autoteliczność w twórczości Tadeusza Peipera i Juliana Przybosia, „Pamiętnik Literacki 1998, 4, p. 37-41.

2) The result of the research conducted with Oskar Gorzkiewicz, DA in the Intaglio Techniques Studio at the Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź in 2021 is a publication discussing in detail the assumptions, course and effects of the process undertaken. It is worth mentioning that one of the main objectives of the research was the development of non-toxic technologies for intaglio printing; the electrolytic etching method developed made it possible to eliminate solutions and vapours that were harmful to health and the environment. The artists’ activities thus had an important ecological value. See A. Habisiak-Matczak, O. Gorzkiewicz, Badanie trawienia elektrolitycznego w druku wklęsłym, z zastosowaniem różnych metali i roztworów. Wykorzystanie technik monotypii w tworzeniu matryc w technikach wklęsłodrukowych, trawionych tradycyjnie oraz z użyciem trawienia elektrolitycznego, Wydawca: ASP w Łodzi, Łódź 2021.

Dariusz Leśnikowski

Transl. Elżbieta Rodzeń-Leśnikowska