PREMONITIONS

Graphic works created by Wawrzyniec Strzemieczny, though unsettling, are captivating. Undoubtedly, we delight in the mastery of execution, admire the superb craftsmanship. We appreciate the Benedictine patience and painstaking effort undertaken by the author. But not only that.

What we also think about is the wide range of thematic references, hidden clues, invoked archetypes. We ask about the current meaning of the motifs used, and at the same time about their relations to the widely understood cultural tradition.

The reference in the works to the idea of palimpsest proves that the artist treats his particular artistic expressions as elements of a humanistic, complex continuum. Thanks to this, a very personal message becomes part of the entire cultural universe. It becomes ambiguous and, as it is constructed using subtle means of expression, paradoxically sustainable, like a bridge it connects the past with the future, the individual with the universal. It provides a pretext for considering the phenomenon of continuity in the cultural sphere.

There is another aspect that is striking for us. It is a sense of a certain common ground we share with the artist, a praise for the ability to depict and give materiality to what is often revealed by the subconscious, premonitions and imagination of each of us. These visions are difficult to rationalize, as they flow from deep layers of sensitivity. The somni space releases dreams and anxieties, things that are not fully named, unsettling. We defend ourselves from them, but at the same time we desire them, because - despite the fact that they arouse trepidation - they can also be beautiful and appealing. We expect artists to reveal them visually. The author shares his obsessions. Some we experience with him, others are very intimate, personal; revealing them to us justifies the author’s status - a sensitive artist.

Bringing them to the surface and providing them with a form gives the artist’s actions an orderly character. It allows to tame reality, to introduce order and to curb impulses coming from different directions. To evoke, if only for a moment, a feeling of understanding and soothing peace. Intrusive literariness in portraying the motives experienced would strip them of their solemnity and mystery, of their nobility. Therefore, anecdote and narrative are sometimes tamed in Strzemieczny’s works. Nevertheless, his artworks remain poetic, mainly due to the tools used in visual language that correspond to literary stylistic means.

The pictures drawn from imagination are not literal, usually merely allusive, very individual. Many of them are the abstract equivalent of what is suggested, irresistibly, by the subconscious. The motifs, lying on the border between abstraction and figuration, have their semantic capacity, sometimes revealed in the suggestion of shape. Despite their erudition, the works are not free from distance; in many we notice contrariness and even perversity, especially when juxtaposing literary commentary with imagery content.

The world of motifs that Wawrzyniec Strzemieczny reveals in his works, both those that have some real references and those conceived, constitute a whole. They exert pressure on the artist’s imagination and yield to the imperative of creation. This state could be called a kind of enlightenment. The nature of this feeling soon stands in opposition to the materiality of the matrix (although its processing contains a mystical aspect) and the paper base of the print. Ultimately, the effect is marked by a veil of magic, something indefinable, that is beyond the spirit and matter of the message itself.

In his artistic expression the artist touches on the problem of the sense of practising an arduous craft, such as printmaking. In the era of the ubiquity of numerous methods of duplication, during the time of dominance of digital culture, and the increasing expansion of artificial intelligence, the activities of artists such as Strzemieczny seem archaic.

Yet it is only seemingly so. When we are confronted with the works he - and the likes of him - have made, we feel that in some ways they are unique, that they contain a certain aspect (one could call it metaphysical), a kind of mystery that hides in the traces of creation adopted by the paper, guaranteeing a special contact with the artist. Taken over, we hold our breath, magic appears.

Today we also ponder on the nature of communication process itself. On the essence of the direct contact in the process of forming emotional relations between people. Text messages, e-mails... Can they credibly express emotions, do they fully convey the essential content, desires and longings?

Back to the art itself. We feel clearly how important the drawing values of the works are for the artist. The basic building tissue of pictorial motifs remains the boldly drawn flexible graphic line, sets of lines running in parallel ducts. They are accompanied by zones delineated by the point-like processing of the surface of the matrix.

Rhythmic arrangements (some of which draw calligraphic-like signs) take part in the play of divisions and clashes of tensions. The arrangement of fragile lines and points, their apparent movement and rhythm become determinants of spatiality.

Within the planes, juxtapositions of areas with different densities and directions of “hatching” appear. The planes of cuts and point-like scratches are layered, directing our gaze, attention and speculations into the depths of the absorbing matter. They reveal the layers of complex reality that lie deeper.

Space and light reign supreme in the domain of the artist’s linocuts. Both these attributes, constitutive for the existence of Strzemieczny’s works, are created masterfully. The reality of the image is marked by luminosity and darkness. Spheres of obscurity, black surfaces are accompanied by unearthly lights, mysterious radiation, sometimes haze that blurs the image. Light plays a huge role in this world: it co-creates and defines forms, sets directions, creates a mysterious atmosphere. Its streaks break through the darkness. They seek gaps and cracks to illuminate the plane.

The works are obviously varied in expression, but mostly reduced to an overall darker tone. Layers of varying density and line directions seem to exude different hues of black, shades of grey, and even give the illusion of the appearance of, potential only, colour. Monochromatic tonality does not diminish the richness and subtlety of nuance, dimming and brightening, intensifying and weakening.

In some works the arrangements of lines, coming closer to each other or moving away, subjected to deliberate shifts, losing – or in a peculiar way creating – the rhythm, evoke the impression of controlled disharmony, fooling the eye. The perfectly constructed, dynamic and vivid world is sometimes entered by geometric, symbolic interjections, provoking further questions. The means of expression used make the message come across as very rich. One might think that these excellent graphics are merely an expression of artistic pride, a manifestation of the artist’s complacency, that they stem from vanity, from a desire to evoke admiration. However, it is enough to look at the range of motifs, their relevance – if only in the case of a few works of an interventionist nature – to humbly surrender to the, sometimes disturbing, beauty of these images and feel compelled to try to understand them, to perceive them not only with the eye and the heart. And some of the works, reflecting the artist’s anxieties, are even catastrophic and sometimes prophetic in nature.

The oneiric reality of the linocuts we look at attracts and troubles us. The artwork of the artist from Lodz goes beyond the sphere of reality experienced on a daily basis. It is not only a manifestation of personal human dilemmas, but also an evocation of inspiring universal themes and a pretext for posing questions about the continuity and richness of culture.

Dariusz Leśnikowski

Translated by Elżbieta Rodzeń-Leśnikowska

Dariusz Leśnikowski




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