Zdzisław Olejniczak's compositions have two different aspects. The first one, revealed when the observation is superficial and reserved, appears to be logical and unemotional - it is the aspect of abstract works enriched by a metaphorical element. Following this trail we can easily observe the endeavours originating from the area of pure visual art, concerning the arrangement and quality of surfaces and the elements which form them, the artist's care to keep dynamic tensions in balance, to emphasise the influence of light.

Such an interpretation is also imposed by the figurative elements which belong to a particular sphere of associations. They are mainly the objects deriving from the world of the constructivist character. They are various cubic forms , often connected with the networks of installations whose function is not precisely defined. The element which undoubtedly links them is their invaluable role in suggesting the space and depth.

The composition of graphic works (as well as numerous drawings which sometimes become the source of inspiration for linocuts) is based on the balance of the areas of the horizontal and vertical 'hatching' with numerous areas dominated by diagonals. The sequences of lines, disconnected from time to time, are not monotonous due to the fact that they are sketched by hand. Thus the lines themselves and the bands between them retain traces of imperfection. Being generally similar they differ in the secondary features - it is a condition of creating the rhythm of similar objects, formulated by the ancients. Not only do the condensation and dispersion of the network of lines have an impact on the contrasts of the white and black but they also evoke value effects. Changes of density in the arrangements of lines and contrasts of directions to which they aim leave us with a very subjective sense of colour values and diversified temperature in the shades of grey.

The tranquillity of this regular and in a unique way controlled composition is disturbed by uplifts and bends of the surface, wavy and arched forms, as well as the disturbances of the rhythm of parallel strips and sudden diversions of their course, which first of all stress the curvature of the image's space.

Another category of objects which are present in Zdzisław Olejniczak's graphic works are various symbols: geometrical figures, numbers and letters set on the cubic forms and the images of lance-pennons and flags referring to a more familiar - for some even political - context.

The letters and figures in graphic works are the remains of the artist's experience with typography, the relationship which started during his studies, and was expressed in one of the practical tasks (a witty transfer of the correspondence of a milkman and inhabitants of a Łódź housing estate into a printed book) or a design of a book for children in which the artist showed his inclination to create the conditions for an intellectual play, raising questions, doing puzzles. In the project under consideration the distortions of space, optical illusions, surprising colour phenomena e.g. obtained due to mobile surfaces or the use of various screens was the source of impressions.

Considering these facts we would like to draw the reader's attention to the artist's inclination to initiate a specific subtle game which can also be observed in the numerous black and white graphic works. The game here is slightly more complicated and sophisticated.

If curious observers resign from the superficial contemplation of the works and make an attempt to discover the other 'face' of this creation and to penetrate the structure of the created world, they will notice that they faced the reality likely to exist only in the graphic approach, never in the real world and according to the rules we obey.

The created reality and its particular elements show that there is an enormous divergence between what people expect to see and what they really perceive with their eyes, though apparently, at least 'at first sight' nothing is unusual as far as our normal way of perception is concerned. When we try to match the particular components of the created structure, our brain will interpret them as a logical unity consisting of various spacious forms linked together in the way which is geometrically impossible(!). Seeing the perspective - perceived as an illusion of space as well as the psychological play of lines is only a disposition of our psychophysical system. The ability to interpret the cues of perspective became a part of the way of human perception of art.

The image is convincing if an impression obtained due to the use of perspective is in accordance with the one which is experienced by people in reality. The view of architecture, familiar, illusionary though having the features of a calculated construction, weakens our vigilance for a while. We seem to be standing in front of a spectacular, yet appropriate view which our senses are used to. Our imagination, being compatible with the assumed and accepted ways of perception and reflection of reality makes us interpret these objects as the elements of the real world. No wonder it happens as, apart from an appropriate construction, other effects, including the shade and light effect, participate in the act of creating the fake reality and making it credible. Only when we start to analyse the space of the image fragment by fragment, we realise the fact that deciphering the composition is not so simple, or actually impossible.

We become aware of the fact that this space is unreal, illusionary, but in spite of this we try to deal with this peculiar world, follow the hints and interpret the whole, like someone who, taking into account a draught, attempts to imagine or even make a three-dimensional object.

Then we face the world in which the clues showing the distance or depth are peculiarly confusing or even deceitful. In this world the traditional notions of directions, down or upper, exterior or interior space lose their meaning. Objects often simultaneously belong to two different areas. As a result the things are the way we see them.

The artist cynically uses his knowledge concerning the way people actually see space and objects arranged in it. We feel like in the chamber of mirrors where it is difficult to point out a real object multiplied by mirrors and what is more we are not sure if we will be able to find the way out of this tangled, full of distorted perspectives reality.

Zdzisław Olejniczak does not only expose the paradoxes typical of the structure of individual objects created for their own sake but he also constructs complicated landscapes which become the context for many amazing structures within one work. Apart from mastering the workshop and creating a technically perfect matrix, it also requires the use of brilliant imagination which helps to control this multi-layer and multi-direction composition.

The architectural landscape of Zdzisław Olejniczak's graphic works helps to penetrate many times the structure of the created reality. Its elements point out and arrange the passage through this complicated system. Each time, depending on the starting point of our journey in the maze of the author's imagination, we follow some other trails, do new puzzles, we are surprised again and again. This characteristic feature often refers to works mainly originating from figuration, with complicated and often ambiguous symbols. It turns out that a work based on the elements of pure abstraction, full of constructivist endeavours may touch the sphere of metaphysics, both when in the background there is an undefined intention of the artist, and when we ourselves become influenced by an anxious impression that we wander around the world which perhaps exists somewhere under the rule of other laws, and when we discover the distressing fact that our world is perhaps different from what it seems to be.

The tradition of creating such realities is long-lasting and rich. In literature it resulted in works which, linking the elements of nonsense and logic, exposed the idea of the world ' on the other side of the mirror', ' a topsy-turvy world', ' a carnaval-like world' (Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll, Mary Norton). Also nowadays, especially in the post-modernist novels characterised by relativism, the narrative often goes in many directions, it is often disturbed, working 'the other way round'. Dating back to the Renaissance turning point in visual art, the one point perspective used to be a subject of various plays where the paradoxes associated with it were the source of surprising tricks and concepts. Later on, at the time of the baroque style William Hogarth presented illogical results caused by deliberate mistakes made while using perspective and light. Giambattista Piranesi created impressive visions of dungeons with corridors having no way out, bridges leading to closed walls, windows which seem to have no view.
In the previous century the first surrealists, and then such artists as Max Escher, Adelbert Ames Junior, Oscar Reutersvärd or Zenon Kulpa became the authors of ambiguous compositions, dominated by the illusionary existence of imaginary creatures that destroyed the belief in the laws of geometry and optics. It is also necessary to mention the particular manifestations of visual culture such as the play with space in the video art or computer art.

Owing to such creation we gradually realise that the traditional perspective is able to make things - objects, space relations, size - real, although in fact they are unreal; the geometry of three-dimensional objects can be very misleading. We start to doubt our perception and the ability to reveal the truth by means of the conventional perspective. Despite all this our awareness accepts only one obvious alternative: either the traditional perspective or no other.

The problem of inability to exist within the accepted paradigms also refers to another fundamental value. The author draws our attention to the fact that, having assumed appropriate conditions, there might be not only space but also time considered in a different way, which lets the artist entitle some of his works in the way which emphasises relativity of time: Eight Days a Week, the 13 XIII.

In this context it appears to be perverse to arrange in nearly a magic order such figures as 1,0 and 2 or suggesting the equations like 'E= [eM]' in the titles of the subsequent graphic works. The artist appeals to the scientific rules necessary to construct and interpret the reality, but in a witty way he also reminds of its relativism.

Finally let us come back to the mutual relationship between the architecture and space in the world of Zdzisław Olejniczak's graphic works. We come to a conclusion that we are concerned with the case where space is determined by the architecture and not the other way round. Thus, if it is the architecture which determines the limits of space, its elements become its unique 'package'. We might immediately raise a question what space it is like - as it is definitely not the space submitted to the laws of the euclidean geometry. It is rather the space where the lines of perspective stay parallel. They do not converge. We can notice how strange one of the fragments of a graphic work ('13.01.94') seems to be, in which lines, like in the linear perspective, have one vanishing point in one of the apexes of a quadrangle.

Under these circumstances we come up with the frequent in art analyses of the relationship between the subject and its reflection in art, between what is the external form and at the same time the limit of an object and its nature, its essence. Is the space beyond the walls the same space which is left as the atmosphere when the mould is put away? Is it possible to talk about any space understood in the usual way, with given limits, volume and structure with reference to the architectural constructions created by Zdzisław Olejniczak? And if there is no such space - what... is there?

Dariusz Leśnikowski