Joanna Proszak's paintings seem to be neutral - just human landscapes. They show usual everyday situations. There is the sun that lays its patches on the walls of tenements, it warms up pavements, it permeates people staring at it. Seemingly cool, non-expressive frames declare the creator's indifference towards the content message at first sight. However, the reality is portrayed in such a way that it evokes ambivalent feelings. In that - one could say - calm, idyllic world some disturbing accents appear. At first we can even overlook them. The moment we notice them, they are surprising.

Even more than by the fact of their presence we are moved by their "inappropriateness". Some extra figures - as if they were forced into the presented reality - real "intruders", throw us off guard. That puts an end to our self-confidence, usual routine, it changes the well-known landscape which is contested every day. We feel alike when someone suddenly, just before pressing the shutter, enters into a thoroughly composed photographic or movie frame.

Status of people "forced in" the space of paintings is vague. The figures are deprived of their shadow. They are in a different space. Not only "the space of sensitivity" different from ours, but also the space understood physically. They stand out due to the contrast of colour and a variety of values. When compared with blurred, rather flat inhabitants of the background, they strike our eye by their image sharpness. Despite the fact that details of some parts of paintings are visible as if they were in mist, the expression of the whole presentation is the final impression. That ambiguity originated from the use of a special technological method. The top layer of the painting is foil stuck onto the surface. Thanks to this, also in the metaphysical context, the figures simultaneously belong and do not belong to the world presented in the paintings. Aren't they in this way only a sign of a certain problem? Poverty, loneliness, suffering. We do know "it happens" around us, yet we do not perceive it or we do not want to notice it. We should find what is hidden, what bothers the world we observe, looking and not seeing.

The paintings are dominated by the contrast of yellows and blues. Yellow quarantees a good mood, cool blue stands for the indifference of an anonymous crowd. The artist simultaneously tends to reach stability of the compositions which become "still lives". We feel both the truth and artificiality of the created scene. Thus the reality of Joanna Proszak's paintings is both objective and subjective at the same time. It is the "illusion for illusion's sake". The images give an impression of appearance of their documentary character. Its relativity, isolation of motives creates the condition of strong tension with the "naturalist" form of a given work. The works refer to current events, familiar scenes. They should be comprehensible and acceptable. But for those…

"Banal" themes representing people's imperfection and mediocrity, signalled by the lack of details in the image of an indifferent crowd, express the "truth" about the reality. Banality of paintings is the equivalent of our dehierarchized visual experiences. It is the answer to photographically accurate, full of sensational details "second-hand" reality, produced by mass media to satisfy the growing demand of society.

It is also the subject of Joanna Proszak's series of graphic works. They are characterised by a matter-of-fact attitude, reducing reality to simple concrete objects and situations. While in paintings the reflections are evoked by different ways of juxtaposition of background elements and other motives, here our attention is focused on reduction, poster-like character, concentrating on a limited set of elements. The paradoxes of the surrounding world are represented by the restricted iconographic epidermis. Figures-idols build the image of tangible reality. People in roles, theatrical poses and gestures, yet without any specific context. Posterlike - dominated by greys and blacks - compositions are reduced to the contrast of a realistic image and geometrical plane forms. We can have an impression that the specific processing of an object is equivalent to its "recovery", endowing it with identity and individual features. However, it is not that way at all. The artist began with creating expressive images. However, she gave them up on behalf of people's images, deprived of freedom and ambiguity, isolated from the background, bringing them closer to an ideal, to an icon.

Nowadays when mass celebrities, idols and temporary authorities are produced, we go away from the essence, concentrating on a "substitute label". We surrender to this procedure because the work of the audience's imagination is connected with associations of metaphorical type, is intended for allegorization.

This art is concerned with the relationship between originality (uniqueness) and alikeness, opposition of subjectiveness and objectiveness. The system of tensions between these factors becomes particularly essential the moment we take someone else's role. When we are fully aware of this act, our invariable attributes are enriched by new features, suspect when referred to others, simultaneously exceptional and typical of those who have already managed to do so. Everybody can try to become someone else. We often put on masks in our

Dariusz Leśnikowski

Transl. Elżbieta Rodzeń-Leśnikowska